Brothers
by theatrhythms
Summary: He doesn't understand why he lets his brother move in with him. AU, Loki-centric; For those of you who'd already been following the verse, please read the introduction and thank you.
1. Introduction

**A Note from the Author:**

As some of you might know, _Brothers_ was already uploaded to this site and in the _Thor_ category for some time. Unfortunately, it got taken down because apparently dropping the F-bomb in a summary isn't appropriate and is actually against the rules. That's my mistake, and I'm sorry for overlooking it. I'm uploading everything as fast as I can, and then it'll be business as usual. I hope I didn't lose too many of you, and I want to thank you all so much for everything you've said and done.

- **Gabrielle, known from here on out as Gabi.**


	2. Brothers Extraordinaire

**Title:** Brothers Extraordinaire.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language and lightly suggestive themes.  
**Word Count:** ~4900  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Sif, Frigga, Fenrir!; implied Thor x Sif, very one-sided, non-serious Fandral x Loki.  
**Spoilers:** None really. There's just a few clever references to the movie and the comics.  
**Warnings:** AU. Pissy!Sarcastic!Loki, Less than Holy!Thor.  
**Summary:** Whatever compelled him to let Thor move in with him, it was a damned horrible thing, for it caused him to make a really fucked up mistake. Loki-centric.  
**AN: **You guys, I don't know why I did this. I can barely work on the big fics I need to finish, and this comes out of me so easily. And it's a Thor fic, which I've never ever ever done before. Woah. Anyways, enjoy.

* * *

He doesn't understand _why_ he lets his brother move in with him. From a distance, one might say his actions were fueled by something ridiculous like compassion or, even worse, _pity_. In all honesty, that's just a little (_a little _as in _very_) hard for him to believe.

He thinks it might have been a major bout of lunacy or amnesia, or perhaps a rare period of extremely poor judgment; the kind of judgment that comes with getting so wasted you want to buy a very small country or test the delicate limits of your body, even if you're normally horribly paranoid and terrified of heights, by seeing how long you can fly after launching yourself off the roof of a mall. Maybe it was a deeply subconscious feeling of pressure to be nice for the sake of his family; possibly, they'd grow to favor him because of his act of great kindness, grow to slowly resent his brother for making his life miserable. Maybe he really _was_ being _compassionate_ or _empathetic_; really, he never was one for compassion, and when empathy took hold of him, he usually kept it to himself. Maybe he was just being impulsive.

But whatever compelled him to let Thor move in with him, it was a damned horrible thing, for it caused him to make a really fucked up mistake.

Some things stay exactly the same for Loki, in terms of living in the house. He still does all of the cooking and cleaning, which isn't too bad considering that he's incredibly prone to neatness regarding his surroundings if not his mind/lifestyle/self-image. Food preparation turns out to be slightly irritating, though, mostly because of the vast differences between Thor's diet, which constitutes of meat, junk food, meat, and meat, and his own, which is considerably healthier as well as smaller. The only area in which their appetites blend is where candy is concerned, for they both have a sweet tooth.

While Loki is no longer the only one paying the rent for the house, he still deals with the bulk of it, no thanks to Thor's apparent magnetism to unemployment. Whatever job the man gets he ends up losing due to his temper or tendency to get carried away. It doesn't help that Loki never got much help from the rest of his family in the financial department to begin with; about sixty percent of his income comes from his work at the library, which supplies him with both money and books.

However, the things that stay the same are unimportant compared to the ones that change drastically. I'll go ahead and list them now.

**1. The volume-level.**

When Loki lived alone, his house was generally quiet and ranged from a volume of 0 to perhaps 14. Maybe 17 when Fenrir was being playful or acting out. The point is, Loki kept his house quiet.

When Thor moved in, that changed from the moment he stepped in the house. Hell, Thor's _voice_ has a default volume of 25. When he's irritated (which is often, especially in the face of Loki's own irritation or general bitchiness) or happy, it rises to a level of 29. When his _friends_ are over, it's probably around 33, and combined with Fandral's, Volstagg's, and occasionally Sif's equally forceful voices, the noise level is unquestionably over 37. Only when Thor is depressed or contemplating something does he go quiet. Even in sleep he is loud.

**2. Fenrir's attitude.**

At first, Loki believed that Fenrir's abruptly hostile behavior was because of Thor's relative newness to the household; Fenrir doesn't really take well to strangers.

But when the husky remained in the same agitated, hard-to-deal-with, practically PMSing state for over two weeks, Loki started to worry. Was he sick? One of _those_ dogs, the ones that become pissy and aggressive unless you '_fix_' them? Loki hoped not and greatly doubted the occurrence; Fenrir had already outgrown that phase of his life. Maybe he still perceived Thor as a threat. Perhaps, like Loki, he was just losing more and more sleep every time Thor stumbled through the front door at random hours of the night, completely smashed.

Whatever the cause of Fenrir's newly-adopted attitude, it aggravates Loki to no end when, after slowly waking up on a Saturday morning, he has his hand nearly bitten off because Fenrir is too full of random rage to appreciate a good petting like he used to. Loki comes to grow used to the feeling of being stomped over on Fenrir's noisy way out of the bed, his stomach caving as the dog's huge paws punch into it, his ears ringing with his rumbling bark.

He decides that his dog just really fucking _hates_ Thor and doesn't think much more about it.

**3. The amount of time it takes Loki to finish something.**

Loki is quick in most of the things he does. It's in his nature to be swift and clean with his actions, from doing schoolwork to getting ready for the day to taking care of Fenrir to using the damn bathroom. But not when Thor's around.

It takes Loki _hours_ to complete an assignment he normally would have finished and perfect in thirty minutes, simply because Thor's being entirely too loud playing _Halo_ with Fandral or listening to his insane, thunderous music. Loki gets up and bitches at his brother, his attitude growing nastier and his ability to focus souring with every time he does, and by the time Thor decides to just _stop_, Loki's nerves are like frayed rope, and he can't possibly focus on _working_.

In the mornings when Loki is trying to get ready and out the door for school or work and the like, the first words of his day are often loud complaints about _Thor, get this out of the hallway_ or _Thor, you know where the hamper is, so make use of it_ or _You can't use my toothbrush to clean your fucking boots_. Then there's the whole ordeal of getting Thor up, which usually came after getting freshened up and before breakfast.

By the way, Loki only acts like Thor's alarm clock because his brother vaguely asked him to after sleeping through a day of classes. Not because he cares or anything. God, _no_.

Loki invests in an air horn shortly after taking up the job of drill sergeant, for he learns that screaming his throat sore often does nothing but make Thor stir lightly when he's sleeping. So, every morning, Loki will enter his brother's room and go straight for the air horn that sits on the bookshelf occupied with _video games _(how _scandalous_). He will then proceed to blow the thing straight into Thor's ear until the man wakes. When that (surprisingly) doesn't work, Loki resorts to climbing into his brother's bed and, like a child, stomping the everloving _fuck_ out of it and yelling at the top of his lungs. Extra points for nailing Thor in the thighs, chest, or head.

And then there's _breakfast_. Breakfast is always a struggle, because Thor will regulary pester him about bacon and eggs and pancakes and grits and leftover pizza and ice cream (_ice cream_), and Loki will retort with fruit and yogurt and oatmeal and bagels and cereal and Texas toast. This situation will either result in Loki caving and cooking something Thor wants, Loki irritating Thor until the man is too pissed to care anymore, or Loki telling the man to make his own damn breakfast.

Getting dressed. Getting dressed is almost always the easiest part of the morning routine unless Loki finds himself wanting to rip his own hair out because all the clothes are dirty, never mind that he reminded Thor yesterday afternoon that it was _his_ day to do the laundry. If his happens, he has to scavenge for _Febreeze_ and try to make his appearance as decent as possible.

Leaving the house, then. On a really bad morning, this is the quickest thing to accomplish, simply because Loki's main goal is to _get the __**fuck**__ out of the house as fast as possible_. He'll run out with his books like he's in a goddamn marathon; he swears up and down that he's been losing weight from all the mornings he's rushed to his car. On mornings that aren't exactly unbearable, he manages to bitch Thor out for just a little longer and relieve some stress before leaving. When things aren't bad at all, Loki makes a point to remind Thor about everything he needs to do for the day/week/immediate period of time. Thor will complain and Loki will moan, and the two will go back and forth with their griping until either Loki realizes that _yeah_, he _really_ needs to get a move on if he wants to get to school/work on time, or Thor flies into a rage and Loki gets scared enough to flee.

Loki resolves to wake up thirty minutes earlier than usual every morning.

**4. The amount of socializing in Loki's life.**

Loki is selectively social. To word it better, he's something of a social chameleon. He enjoys talking with people, _honestly_. But that doesn't at all mean he likes people _themselves_.

With people in his age group and of a similar temperament, Loki is at ease and comfortable enough to not give a damn about how he appears to them. He can be an angel as well as a demon, and that's perfectly alright to him.

Around those older than him, Loki becomes more reserved out of resentment if not respect. He cares not for authority or the concept that age determines how smart, successful, important, etcetera, you are. However, he's learned that keeping to himself around older folks is far more beneficial than being a rebellious cunt, so it's only natural that he opts for the higher path.

With those younger than him, Loki's attitude varies. If they're wise, insightful, and charming, he's more than happy to make conversation. If they're headstrong, rude, and uncouth, though, he has no qualms with being just as impolite and bigheaded back to them (without making a hypocrite of himself, mind you).

But all this is not to suggest that Loki seeks out company. Rather, he'd much rather be alone despite his guilty pleasure for socialization.

After Thor moved in, many more people entered Loki's life, and _fast_. Often, they come and go with their loudness and carelessness, their swaggering attitudes and affinity for alcohol and partying. They're mostly all the same to Loki, and he prefers not to speak with them, even though they all seem to enjoy drawing him out with questions like _Where's Thor?_ and _Aren't you Thor's brother?_ and _Are you anemic or something?_. Only four of these individuals remain constant. Thor refers to them as his _posse_.

… _posse._

Fandral is like Thor in his charisma and formidable presence, unlike him in his good temper and general nosiness. He has the same _go, go, go_ attitude as Thor, and, coupled with a sharp mind and silver tongue, makes for a fairly charming guy. Loki thinks that Fandral is pretty good for conversation, but he often finds himself avoiding the man because he's awfully flirtatious, and that makes Loki more uncomfortable than he'd really like to say.

Volstagg is just loud, gluttonous, and irresponsible in Loki's opinion. He's gotten into several arguments with Thor over the man's good qualities, which Thor will vehemently claim are loyalty and sensitivity; things Loki translates into clinginess, gullibility, and weakness (never mind that Loki has a rather sensitive soul as well). Every time Volstagg walks in his house, he goes straight for the kitchen. If Loki's _lucky_, the man will make some flighty joke about how motherly/wifey/feminine he is in regards to his cooking, after which Fandral will take it upon himself to verbally _rape_ him, after which he will get extremely flustered and angry, after which the two buffoons will laugh and go off to get drunk with Thor. _Yeah_.

And then there's Hogun, who is the most tolerable to Loki merely because he's _quiet_ as well as sober (most of the time). The thing that irks Loki, though (because there's _at least _one thing about _everything_ that irks Loki), is how hangdog Hogun always appears. Always discreet, always brooding; the grandest smile Loki's ever seen out of the man was a brief flash of teeth before it swiftly disappeared. And it was a drunken grin at that. It's never occurred to Loki that he's quite similar to Hogun in his dejected nature.

Sif is the sole female in Thor's _posse_, as well the only member of said group that Loki has a spectacularly hard time figuring out the exact nature of her relationship with his brother. She's tough and just a tad unemotional, and Loki guesses that she consciously chooses to repress her feelings (_Why_, though? Who knows.). As well as being smarter than Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, Sif seems to posses the strongest will and personality out of the four of them. Loki imagines himself being friendly when he thinks for the sake of thinking; the only thing stopping him from actually sparking a friendship with her is the tumultuous relationship she shares with Thor.

It's almost kind of funny, because Loki thinks that the way she treats Thor as a man she can easily walk over should make her much easier to befriend, when in fact, it makes it that much more difficult for him to approach her. Alone, he silently entertains the thought of them being conspirators against Thor's massive ego, but when he sees her belittling his brother in the graceful way she has, it makes him uncomfortable and slightly irritated. How odd.

It's almost every other evening when Loki is studying or reading in his room and he hears Thor and his posse blow through the front door with their raucous laughing and voluble voices. It's aggravating and difficult to get used to, but Loki deals by grabbing his iPod, stuffing his ears, and turning Depeche Mode up to maximum volume. What's considerably harder to contend with are the nights when he comes home from the library, tired and ready to fall into bed, and Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif are occupying _his_ fucking living room, drinking _his _fucking alcohol, eating _his_ fucking food, and generally making drunken, obscene fools of themselves.

Here's where the aforementioned socializing comes into play.

As soon as the door is closed, Fandral is up and stumbling towards him, sinful intentions written all over his face. Sometimes, Loki will humor him with a smile or a witty remark; sometimes, he'll just growl in the man's face and say something absolutely _horrible_. Either way, Fandral has the charm turned up to ten and is saying anything that he thinks will get himself into Loki's bed.

Loki never bites.

He rids himself of Fandral, Fandral's eyes, and Fandral's ever-seeking hands with some comment that unfailingly baffles the man's scrambled, intoxicated mind. Loki then flees to the kitchen in pursuit of a yogurt cup or a Gatorade before he climbs into bed. Unfortunately, he almost _always_ finds himself being trailed by Volstagg and, soon after, Fandral and Hogun.

Can a man be free in his own fucking house? Loki honestly feels like a helpless rabbit being chased by a pack of wolves. Anyways.

Volstagg demands food and quips about how much estrogen is in Loki's body. Fandral blatantly checks Loki out and says something pretty high up on the nasty scale (from a scale of one to Tiger Woods, the comment is probably a Ke$ha). Hogun simply glares and makes things pretty uncomfortable, and right about now is when Loki magically discovers a creative new way to make an exit without offending the three too much.

As he escapes to the living room, he will find himself faced with one of two things: Sif and Thor in the middle of an intense, passionate bitch-fight, or Sif and Thor in the middle of an intense, passionate make-out session. The former is easier to ignore than the latter, as you might imagine; there's almost nothing that rubs Loki the wrong way quite like catching his older brother French-tonguing another person, especially in his own house.

If there is fighting, Thor will drunkenly request (_demand_) Loki's support and typically sharp tongue. Loki invariably declines.

If there is Frenching, Thor will wink (_wink_, oh _**God**_) at Loki and continue. Loki vomits a little in his mouth at this point; how would _you _feel knowing that there is a possibility your older brother could get laid in _your fucking house_?

And then Loki practically _sprints_ down the hall to his room, slams the door, locks it (just in case Fandral's morality is even lower than he thinks, and that's pretty damn _low_), and crawls into bed. He falls asleep almost instantly despite Fenrir's insistent barking to be fed and let out.

Some mornings, Loki will barge into Thor's room and find him fast asleep and entangled with Sif. Those days, Loki finds it effortless to harden his heart and refrain from waking his brother.

Even rarer than those mornings are the ones where Loki actually ends up talking to Sif. On those days, their conversation is usually easy with an underlying awkwardness, a silent understanding about what happened the night before, how it probably doesn't matter, _Don't talk to Thor about it_. Only once did Loki broach the subject, did he address the elephant in the room.

He ended up in a terrible argument with Sif about _Thor_ and what _Thor_ wanted, needed, blah-blah-blah. It was uncomfortable and horrifying to Loki, simply because he'd never gotten so furiously protective of his brother, and _really_: where the _fuck_ did that come from? (He was probably just tired. Yeah, that's it.)

The quarrel ended with Thor's waking, after which Loki and Sif wordlessly agreed to never talk about Thor in that context again.

And so that is the story of how Loki's social horizons expanded.

**5. Loki undergoes some personality adjustments.**

Loki isn't an irritable person. Correction: _wasn't_ an irritable person.

Loki used to pride himself in handling things calmly and coolly, and he was respected for this attitude by the people who knew him. Thor moved in and Loki's patience broke through the window and ran stark naked down the street, hollering "Bye, Loki! I'm _gone!_".

After a particularly stressful day at school, Loki usually drives home to chill out and calm himself down for a few minutes, for the silence of his house is pretty good at penetrating his built-up anxiety and anger at the world. With Thor invading his space, that's _really fucking __**hard**_ to do.

Loki will walk in the door, and the first thing he hears is _Aerosmith_ or _AC/DC_ or _Kanye Fucking __**West**_at an earsplitting volume. The sound of aggressive electric guitars and crazy drum beats and godawful rap verses grate on his nerves like a cat ripping upholstery from an incredibly expensive and delicate chair. Since he's already pissed off, Loki yells across the house for Thor to _turn the motherfucking music __**down**_.

Thor will then conveniently decide to be a total asshole and charge into the room, grinning triumphantly and swaggering like a god. Loki is just sinking onto the couch when Thor is in his face with some radical story involving the dwarves Grumpy (Hogun), Sexy (Sif), Slutty (Fandral), and I'mAlwaysFuckingHungry (Volstagg), something Loki's absolutely sure he won't find a fuck to give about, and his voice is too loud and his smile is too bright and he's in _Loki's fucking personal space_ and he still hasn't turned the music down and Loki hates him so fucking much right now.

Remember that Loki is a naturally _collected_ person.

So then Loki starts yelling and then Thor starts yelling and then Fenrir starts barking, and then there's all this goddamn noise in the house and Loki feels like his head is going to _**explode**_. He makes the terrible mistake of shoving Thor, _Thor_, and before he knows it, he's flying out the door and into his car, hastily keying the machine into drive. Thor is stumbling down the front steps with swearwords on his lips as Loki backs the _**fuck**_ out of the driveway at about forty miles per hour. He can hear his brother screaming the most ridiculous shit at him as he speeds down the street, and he blasts Muse all the way to the library.

His coworkers look at him. Loki stabs them with his eyes. They smile at him. He practically _screams_ at them. They _talk _to him. He kicks their heads off and _**eats**_ them. Fuck, they don't do anything to him and he wants to run them all over with his fucking Elantra. It's very unsettling considering that Loki is usually so calm.

And then he gets home, and, if Thor White and the Four Dwarves are there, he completely forgoes politeness in favor of addressing them all with a vocabulary so colorful and vulgar it makes even _Fandral_ blush. Then he goes straight for his room and, because it seems to be the only way he can deal with a rage so great, lets himself cry.

It's not funny. It's not pretty. It's _ugly_ and _**stupid**_, in Loki's opinion. Absolutely _preposterous_ that he would let his mood drop so low.

He and Fenrir both fall asleep pissy and aggressive.

And so it goes that Loki turns into a game of Operation, where if you touch the wrong place, even just slightly, his vision goes red and he turns into a screaming, crying mess. A minor stain on the carpet has him ranting irately for hours. Thor's clothes on the bathroom floor make him want to destroy something beautiful.

In addition to this newfound irritation, Loki's vocabulary has soured _severely_. While he is still as eloquent and articulate as ever, curse words come flying out of his mouth at a disturbing frequency and his grammar collapses like a burning building when he grows cross. And it's all _Thor's_ fault; do you know how very hard it is to speak proper English and berate someone at the same time when the beratee's syntax is just as angry and fucked to hell?

On a lighter note, Loki finds that things that would have bothered him before, like a misplaced book or an annoying phone call from his family, are now laughable compared to the problems Thor causes.

**6. The things Loki has to look forward to when he gets home.**

It used to be that all Loki expected to find when he returned to the nest was a hungry Fenrir, a more or less full fridge, and a couple of dishes to wash.

Now he has a whole new list of things to look forward to upon his homecoming:

1. A hungry, pissed Fenrir locked in his room

2. An empty fridge

3. A whole sink of dishes to wash

A fuckload of laundry

4. Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif

5. Empty beer/vodka/rum/[insert alcoholic beverage] cans/bottles

6. Miscellaneous trash items

7. Noise from Thor's stereo

8. Noise from the X-Box

9. Noise from Thor White and the Four Dwarves

10. Noise

11. Clothes all over the floor

12. A room that suddenly feels like Heaven

It's irritating, and it takes a lot of work to keep up with everything Loki has to fix, clean, or perfect, but honestly? He thinks it's worth it to being _doing _something for somebody, even if he's pretty sure that somebody is himself and himself alone. Of course, he'd never say that to anyone but Fenrir.

**7. Loki's experience with video games.**

When Loki was a teenager, he owned a Nintendo DS and _Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team_. He'd spend hours playing the game and drawing owls and wolves and chameleons on his DS when he couldn't sleep late at night. He liked to collect Dark-type Pokémon, and he had a Mightyena named Napoleon, a Honchcrow named Circe, and an Absol named King. Besides the boring, long nights when Loki would play _Pokémon_, he never really liked or engaged in video games at all. He didn't understand why Thor and Fandral were so avidly devoted to beating _Halo_ or one of the many other games his brother owned.

If you ask him, Loki will say he has no idea how he got into the habit of letting Thor teach him how to play X-Box every Sunday night. He really doesn't, but part of him suspects that it has to do with his tendency to read books in the living room on such nights and Thor's propensity for playing video games all the time.

Loki finds that he favors _Grand Theft Auto_, but that's not something he'll admit to out loud, even by accident. It's a game he easily gets drawn into because of the rage and the pressure and the impulse and the _heat_, because of how powerful the controller feels in his hands as he plays, because of the thrill of _beating _Thor at _something_, for once. Eventually, the gaming turns into something enjoyable instead of just a competition.

Thor is driving fast, _really _fast, and Loki is screaming at him to pay attention, and it's 12:30 at night and they're yelling at the TV, when suddenly Thor's car crashes headfirst into a police cruiser. Loki is fixing to yell at Thor for his stupidity when Niko Bellic flies through his fucking _windshield_ and onto the street, only to be run over by a speeding car.

The cry in Loki's throat comes out as one of the most exuberant, genuine laughs that has ever escaped him. Thor's responding cackle sounds like thunder.

**8. Loki's relationship with his mother.**

Loki has always loved his mother more than most people in his family. She seems to be the only relative of his that truly understands him as much as she respects and loves him. While Loki finds himself to typically be a cold and placid person in the company of his family, his heart is warmed when he is with Frigga. But he has always found it difficult to approach her to talk about his problems; why would he even try? Not when Thor demands so much attention from both her and their father.

But after about two weeks of living with Thor, Loki is calling Frigga, and he _complains_ and he _bitches_ and he _whines_ to her for hours. And she fucking _listens_ to him, and _God_, it feels _so __**good**_.

After that, Loki calls his mother at least once every week, and they talk about things they were both too scared to before.

**9. Loki's relationship with Thor.**

When they were children, Loki and Thor were practically attached by the hip. They'd constantly follow each other around or seek one another out. Whenever Loki was too small or weak to accomplish a task, Thor would always be there to help him, and whenever Thor couldn't wrap his head around a problem, Loki never minded lending his advice, which was usually very good. They ate together, played together, slept together; they were Loki and Thor, Thor and Loki. Brothers extraordinaire.

It was when Thor hit puberty that they began to drift apart like tectonic plates. All Thor wanted to talk about was girls and fighting and manliness and dirty jokes, and all of those things both confused and hurt Loki. _Confused_ him because he didn't understand what was so great about the bullshit Thor would spout; _hurt_ him because now there was something Thor was a part of and he _wasn't_.

When Loki turned twelve and entered adolescence, like tectonic plates still, friction grew between the brothers and their attitudes began to clash. While he understood Thor, Loki also grew to resent him. Out of _jealousy_, because Thor was more popular, more attractive, more confident, more athletic, more talented, more _loved_. Out of _longing_, because Thor didn't seem to crave his company as much as that of his new, blockheaded friends. Out of _pride_, because Loki began to feel that, in a way, he was _better_ than Thor. He just had yet to figure why.

As the brothers neared adulthood, their relationship only worsened. Petty arguments turned into full blown rage-fests, into fist-fights that Thor would always win, into word-duels in which Loki would triumph. They would scream and hit and insult and belittle each other in ways that grew progressively crueler, more vicious. Thor would call Loki "brainiac", "faggot", "freak"; Loki would label Thor "idiot", "fuckwit", "animal". When Loki thinks about it now, he realizes truly how horrible they both were to each other, how overdramatically and _wrongly_ they'd acted.

It was the day Thor had picked Loki up from band practice in a heavily drunk state and gotten in a horrible, nearly fatal accident that Loki decided he wanted nothing more to do with his brother. He'd broken two ribs and cracked three more, fractured his skull, and sprained his leg. Thor came up with a cracked skull as well, a broken leg and arm, and a scarred thigh. The person he'd crashed into barely survived.

Of course, then their father had a stroke. Of course, then their grandparents died. Of course, it was still _all about __**Thor**_.

Loki went off to college and (almost) forgot about his family until Thor showed up on his doorstep, begging him to take him and pleading for forgiveness. Cue Loki's very out-of-character response and the resulting changes.

And now Loki is grudgingly picking up after his older brother, furiously yelling at the top of his lungs about his messiness, stubbornly defending him from Sif, crying laughing at his Grand Theft Auto antics. Now Thor is deliberately pissing his younger brother off, snobbishly complaining about his health food, mindlessly cursing him in the doorway, shamelessly forcing him to socialize.

They still get really fucking pissed with each other. Loki still thinks things have to change in order for him to put up with Thor living with him, and Thor still thinks Loki needs to loosen up. There's still the Four Dwarves and Fenrir the PMSing dog.

But there's also still Loki and Thor.

* * *

**It got worse as it went on because I got sleepier as I wrote it, but oh well. I'm thinking about doing more like this, but it isn't definite.**

**- Gabi.**


	3. Just a Million Little Gods

**Title:** Just a Million Little Gods.  
**Rating:** PG-15-ish for an instance of really bad language… and language in general.  
**Word Count:** ~4100  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Fandral, Sif, Fenrir. Very one-sided Fandral x Loki.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Pissy!Sarcastic!Loki, Flirty!Fandral to be faithful to the comics, some almost-fighting, a lot of tongue-in-cheek-ness.  
**Summary:** He and Thor have oddly emotional reactions to music. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** Since I liked writing _Brothers Extraordinaire_ so much, I pretty much decided I'm going to write a bunch more stories within the same universe. This one is basically two random, drabbly things with Loki's music as a theme. I might do one about Thor's music later on. Anyways, this didn't turn out to be as humorous as I wanted it to be; it actually took a dramatic turn. Also, before you read, I want to point out that Loki, Thor, and Thor's friends are all college students if that wasn't clear before (you might want to read _Brothers Extraordinaire_ before starting this; I strongly recommend it). You'll find out more about their school-related experiences if you follow the verse. The title is taken from a lyric from the song _Wake Up_ by Arcade Fire.

* * *

"What're you listening to?" is suddenly in his ear, rudely replacing the almost-soothing cacophony of Arcade Fire. Loki makes an irritated noise as his hand shoots out, expertly snatching his misplaced ear-bud from Thor.

"Does it matter, Thor?" he asks, shooting his older brother a carefully exasperated look. Loki fastidiously contemplates his expressions before doling them out to Thor, quickly coming up with just the right mixture of emotions like aggravation, bitchiness, fury, coldness, indifference, fatigue, sarcasm, and many other similar feelings. This time, the look he gives Thor is a hybrid of tiredness and irritation, peppered with a small but strong dose of frostiness.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to hinder Thor. This, while unfortunate, doesn't really surprise Loki.

Thor grins like he knows how he gets under Loki's skin with merely his presence (he probably does, _ugh_), and he drops onto his brother's bed to sit across from the smaller, darker man. Fenrir rouses beside Loki, obviously set off by Thor's suddenly very proximity, and the dog practically leaps to his feet, stomping on Loki's thigh and whacking him in the face with his tail in the process of doing so. Loki rolls his eyes (can he and his dog be best friends again, _please_?) when Fenrir starts barking at Thor, ears turned back and tail stuck straight out behind him.

Of course, Thor really isn't fazed, and he watches Fenrir apathetically if not with a hint of _amusement_. Almost reflexively, Loki reaches out to run a pacifying hand down his dog's back.

"Calm down, Fenrir," he mollifies, pushing the husky's butt down until he sits on his haunches. As Fenrir ceases his barking, still keeping his hard gaze on Thor, Loki offhandedly adds, "He's not leaving, no matter how much we want him to."

Thor snorts with a haughty smirk, and Loki vaguely wonders _why_ he's getting the feeling that his brother is winning a fight that hasn't even started yet (probably because Thor has won unborn struggles between himself and Loki for their whole _lives_).

"You do flatter me, Loki," Thor jests, holding his hands to his chest in a mockingly heartfelt gesture. He's gazing wistfully at his brother, and Loki feels terribly uncomfortable as Thor goes on with, "I can just _feel_ the love radiating off of you in waves."

"Don't use such big words, Thor," Loki deadpans, attempting to turn back to the novel he was reading before his brother interrupted him, "It's much too becoming."

The resounding, brief silence following his wisecrack sounds a bit like victory to Loki; that is, until Thor lets out an incredibly too-loud laugh and scratches his head. However, the chortle is a bit awkward and forced; something that Loki's practiced ears easily pick up. He finds his place on his page.

"You know, I can be smart, too, bro," Thor disrupts Loki's train of thought (_again_) as he crosses his thick, muscular legs under him and leans back on his hands. The older, fairer one of them grins almost childishly as he states, "I just opt to be awesome, that's all."

"Oh, _believe_ me, brother. You _are _awesome," Loki sarcastically bites out as Fenrir noses into his dark, currently messy hair. He casts his pale green eyes up to regard Thor with deliberate coldness; Loki's fucking _pushing_ it, man, turning his default, level three icy glare for Thor into a powerful, level 9, full-on _glacial_ scowl of _death_.

"I suggest you get out before your remarkableness starts to rub off on me," he says none too warmly, "You wouldn't want to lose any _awesome_ points, would you?"

Thor's grin shapeshifts into a small, disappointed frown. Part of Loki is glad that Thor doesn't take his spectacularly acerbic comments to heart; the last thing he wants is a pissed-off Thor in his house, counting on him for food and a satisfactory living space, among other things. _But_, another part of him absolutely _hates_ that Thor can take his insults in stride, because that implies that the man doesn't take him seriously, which means his efforts to get his brother to leave him alone/be quiet/generally make life easier for him are almost always in vain. Yeah. Life is most certainly a bitch.

"You still haven't told me what you're listening to, Loki," Thor points out in an even voice. He bends forward, draping his arms over his lap as he leans closer to Loki's slightly slouching form. And _damn_, Loki really has _no_ chance of paying attention to _Fight Club_ when Thor is that close to him. His brother's closeness is just awfully distracting in such a perfectly aggravating way.

After futilely pretending to ignore the ever-loving _fuck_ out of Thor (Goddamn, _Thor_, you can just be so fucking _dense_ sometimes. Can't you see that your brother has spontaneously become oblivious to your presence?), Loki heaves an incredibly heavy, overdramatic sigh (one typical of a drama queen) and shoves an ear-bud at his brother. It takes Thor a few moments to realize Loki's intention, and when he does and takes the earphone, Loki is rolling his eyes and seriously craving a huge cup of the girliest coffee Starbucks can offer. He vexedly watches Thor plug his ear with the small white bud, only half-caring about his brother's reaction to the music.

Thor is staring at the junction between deep green wall and dark gray ceiling, his face a mask of wondrous concentration and his mouth hanging open just slightly. Loki is listening to _Wake Up_ through the other ear-bud, still in his ear, and he takes Thor's distractedness as an opportunity to continue reading _Fight Club_.

You see, Loki has a tendency to get very deeply immersed in the books and stories he reads, often in a matter of only a few seconds. He's been doing it since the third grade and has countless sleepless nights to account for the habit. That's why he almost screams when Thor shatters his reverie with a comparatively loud, "Who is this?"

Loki responds with a level six glare and, "Arcade Fire." Upon Thor's bemused face, Loki sighs so hard he almost feels out of breath and adds, "You've probably never heard of them."

Thor shakes his head and watches Loki, still listening to the rough, odd-sounding music through his one ear-bud.

"I haven't," he says, and, to Loki's surprise, there is no sarcasm whatsoever in his brother's voice as he goes on with, "But they're cool."

Loki doesn't really know what to say at first, as he's unused to having Thor agree with him about anything, _especially_ music. He's not sure whether Thor is bullshitting him or not (he's actually not a great actor by anyone's standards, but Loki doesn't appreciate being showed up _at all_), and he's pretty scared to say something nice. What horrors could Thor perform while under the impression that Loki can be _pleasant_?

"I'll let you sync your iPod to my computer," Loki manages in a carefully neutral voice. He doesn't look at Thor, for the argyle pattern on his bedspread is just so fucking _fascinating_. Not at all because he knows that if he looks at the man, he'll want his older brother who loved him and picked him up whenever he fell and sang him to sleep at night back. That's _ridiculous_.

Thor is grinning like a kid in a candy store when Loki decides he's detached enough to look up. (_Is he smiling at _me_?_, he internally wonders.) The man brushes his flaxen hair out of his face as he tugs the ear-bud out of his ear and hands it back to Loki.

"Thanks, bro," Thor exclaims in his voice that sounds like thunder, hopping off of the bed with a grace odd for his size. Loki watches Thor duck out of the doorway, almost amused by how his brother's height and width makes him lower his head, pull his shoulders together as he exits. The warmth doesn't stay with him long, though; the ember in his core is quickly replaced with snow, not quite ice yet.

Loki, an expert about himself, can already feel a wave of depression approaching. With a sigh that feels heavier than lead, he dog-ears _Fight Club_, removes his ear-buds, absently pets Fenrir, and slips out of his room into the kitchen for a huge bowl of ice cream. Only in sadness can he afford to be unhealthy.

* * *

He curses, staring defiantly at the patch of scarlet paint on the cement. With glaring emerald eyes, Loki once again aims his hose at the offending splotch.

Nothing happens. _Of course_.

Loki sighs in a defeated fashion as he turns his gaze to the house, watching through the glass double-doors as Thor and Fandral stupidly fight over a bag of beef jerky (when the hell does Loki have fucking _beef jerky_ in his house?), Sif lounging leisurely on the counter and laughing at her companions' struggle. Thor and Fandral are almost completely covered in bright red paint, the scarlet liquid drying in their hair, on their faces and arms, their clothes. Sif has a dash of it across her face, but nowhere else. Even _worse_, there are several blood-colored footprints on the kitchen floor, and it's all Loki can do not to start screaming or crying. Oh, yeah.

_Stop burning_, Loki mentally tells his eyes as he looks down and away from the awful sight of his brother and Dwarf Number One. So far, Thor and his so-called _bros_ haven't yet caught Loki weeping from the stress of their antics. Loki would very much like to keep it that way.

"Let it _go_!" Thor bellows from the house, and Loki glances up just in time to see Fandral ramming into his brother's chest, taking advantage of the man's heavy build to push him back into the counter behind them. A stack of plastic bowls tumbles to the floor upon impact. Loki sniffs wetly.

He reminds himself to never again let Thor use his paint and drops his hose, uncaring that it continues to spout water.

Very wet and deeply wounded, Loki pushes his way into the house, letting his face instinctively harden as he strides heavily through the kitchen, water squishing beneath his feet with every step. Fandral's smooth honey laugh reaches his ears as he approaches the doorway leading to the living room/hallway.

"Where're ya goin' so fast, sexy thing?" the man purrs, and Loki absently considers grabbing a butter knife and ramming it between the asshole's ribs. When, like an idiot, he turns to regard Fandral, he is immediately greeted with the man's heady, lascivious blue eyes gazing longingly at him. Fandral grins, winking purposefully.

Loki doesn't feel anything, yet. Honest to God.

And then Thor is roughly _yanking_ the bag of jerky from Fandral's hands, nearly ripping the fucking thing in half as he does. Several pieces of beef fall to the floor, and before Loki knows it, Thor and Fandral are scrambling to the ground, shoving fiercely at each other and grasping for the lost meat like starved, wild animals. Sif bursts into laughter, and Loki is abruptly reminded of how badly he wants to cry again.

Before he can start sobbing like a baby, Loki darts down the hallway and into his room and shuts the door, pressing his lean, shaking body against the dark wood once he's isolated from the world. He inhales deeply, closing his eyes tightly and making a valiant attempt to ground himself.

When he feels like he won't collapse upon movement, Loki pushes himself away from the door and pads over to his bookshelf. Rolling up the sleeves of his steel gray Henley, he quickly scans the shelf he has occupied with CDs until he spots something he's in the mood for. Loki gingerly snatches the vinyl case from the rack and heads back for the door, breathing heavily to summon some miraculous, obscure state of calm.

Oddly, the exercise only causes Loki's resentment to grow. The man idly takes note of this as he pulls his silky raven hair up into a small ponytail, letting some of the inky strands fall messily out of their bonds. Pissed Loki is a much more fun part to play than Weepy Loki in his opinion.

When he returns to the kitchen, CD in hand, Thor and Fandral are sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor tearing the bag of jerky apart, like they can't eat it fast enough. Sif is still perched on the counter, but now she's chattering loudly on her cellphone, oblivious to her surroundings. Thor and Fandral raise their heads in unison to see Loki's tall form entering the room.

"Back so soon?" Fandral smirks, watching Loki as he approaches and unabashedly looking him up and down. Pig.

"Oh, _yes_," Loki replies in a spectacularly dry tone, walking towards the glass doors without giving Fandral or his brother so much as a second glance, "How could I go on being separated from you for so long?"

As Loki opens the door, he hears Fandral chuckle, say, "You couldn't, angel-face."

Loki doesn't think he looks much like an angel. That's one of the many reasons why he gets extraordinarily PO'd at the comment, why he whips around to glare lethal daggers at Fandral, clutching the glass door tight enough to shatter it. Well, not really (he never was particularly strong, unlike Thor), but for the sake of being dramatic, let's just say that.

"_Sarcasm_, you cunt," he spats, a thrill almost reluctantly running through him when Fandral and Thor's eyes widen to the size of saucers, their mouths going agape at the insult. The two of them, however dense they are, know that when words like _cunt _come flying out of Loki's usually eloquent and articulate mouth, he's downright _furious._ Feeling cold enough to smirk, Loki adds, "And don't call me an angel when you know just as well how very _demonic_ I can be."

He slams the door loud and angrily behind him, stomping across the wet patio to the stereo sitting atop a now paint-covered table. Loki reins in the urge to pulverize it (The table or the stereo, you ask? Does the difference really _matter_?) as he pops the lid of the stereo and practically shoves his CD into it, thanking whatever higher power there is that he didn't _break_ the disc. He cranks the volume up as high as it will go, almost scaring himself as he does it.

To say that Loki _despises_ loudness would be mostly truthful. Sure, he appreciates chaos and disorder when it counts, and some sounds, like thunder or the beat of a drum, excite him more often than not. But, since Thor moved in with him, Loki finds himself cringing away from anything too noisy or voluble. Especially things like music. Or voices. Besides all that, blasting music at maximum volume is a scarily Thor-esque action, and Loki fears that his brother's influence might be rubbing off on him.

As the pulsing throb of a bass guitar radiates from the stereo speakers, Loki moves to grab the bucket of paint left open and dripping on the patio. He lets his resentment for everything, even himself, rule his actions as he shuts the hose off and throws it carelessly to the side. Not waiting for the patio to dry, the man gets on all fours and starts to cover the ruined cement with red paint. Maybe it'll actually turn out nicely.

Or it won't, because everyone and their mom really fucking _hates_ Loki for whatever reason.

The sky is a beautiful, deep blue, the stars are hanging dimly in the sky, almost half of the patio is a striking scarlet hue, and Loki is still losing himself in the sound of The White Stripes when Thor decides to pay attention to him (meaning,_ annoy the fuck out of him_) again. The younger of the two almost jumps and spills the remainder of his paint on the cement when his older, brighter counterpart bangs unceremoniously on the glass that separates them.

Loki raises hard, frosty emerald eyes to regard Thor, who is pretty much just a huge silhouette standing in the kitchen, staring at him in what looks like curiosity. Thor opens his mouth and speaks, but Loki can't hear him over the blaring music.

And that's exactly why he put The White Stripes on in the first place. Consider this a success, my friends.

Loki doesn't think twice when he simply turns back to his work, yawning quietly and brushing a lock of raven hair out of his face with red-stained fingers. He's tired, honestly, but the loudness and automatism of his present situation is soothing and grounding in a way almost nothing is to him now. Loki doesn't want to let it go so soon, despite the fact that tomorrow is Monday and school will be hectic (not to mention _early_) and his psychology instructor is irrationally relentless in loathing him. All of that is easy to deal with next to _Thor_.

Speaking of Thor, the man bangs on the door again, and Loki absently wonders _why_, in light of his own intelligence and insightfulness, his brother was so conveniently gifted with physical prowess and relinquished mental excellence. Maybe they were destined to be foils of one another, fated to be polar opposites; in appearance, in personality, in spirit. It's a sad existence, in Loki's opinion (he secretly wishes that his relationship with Thor would thrive because of their differences, rather than crash and burn like it's always seemed).

When Loki ignores his brother once more, Thor does what's both sensible and aggravating by opening the door. He practically screams (or just raises his voice a little; this is _Thor_, you guys), "_Loki!_ Maybe you should turn the music down!"

Loki laughs in spite of himself, replying in a deliberately normal (inaudible) voice, "Maybe _not_." He feels like a troll at this particular moment, takes twisted pleasure in aggravating Thor. In hindsight, it's probably not a good idea to grate on his brother's fragile nerves, but do you see any fucks being given?

Loki doesn't.

"_What?_", Thor bellows, leaning further out of the door in a largely futile attempt to hear his brother better. Loki laughs harder, the asshole.

"Oh, nothing, Thor," he replies in a slightly louder voice, this time insolently glancing up at his brother, who towers over him, for a moment. "It's nothing important, because nothing really _is_ important to you, is it?"

Thank _gods_ Thor doesn't hear him clearly. Surely Loki would have gotten slammed into the pavement for his cheekiness if he did.

But Loki forgets his purposefully insouciant attitude when Thor steps outside (onto the _still-drying_ paint, goddammit) and crosses the patio (tracking huge, tacky, red footprints across it) over to the stereo. He switches it off with a flick of the wrist, and Loki barely stops himself from chucking his bucket of paint at Thor in a particularly violent show of disapproval. Thor turns to him, expression bemused.

"What was that, brother?" the blond asks, watching Loki's squatting, fuming form crouched on the ground with his horrible squinty eyes that arch like crescent moons.

"I said, '_Fuck you_'," Loki spits thoughtlessly, quickly rising from the cement to storm over to his brother, whose face has taken on a mildly irritated expression at the insult. He stands before Thor, glaring unabashedly into his clear blue eyes (damn their height difference), and asks in a curt, cold voice, "Why did you do that?"

Of course Thor_ has_ to be stupid. It's practically written in his _genetic code_ to be stupid.

"Do what?" the man retorts in a voice that's slightly louder and more forceful than his already normally loud and forceful tone. _That_ voice is like a yellow light; it's a warning sign that he's getting aggravated, which, most plainly, translates into _back the __**fuck**__ off before he actually gets pissed enough to slam you_.

Frankly, Loki doesn't give a damn.

"Turn off my music! Why the hell did you turn off my music?" Loki demands, and he can _feel_ himself getting colder, angrier, can almost _see_ the rage swelling inside Thor himself. The two of them have gotten in enough fights over the years to know each other's tells; Thor knows that Loki's eyes get wider, more sunken, that the emotions displayed on his face become erratic and nonsensical when fury creeps up inside him, and Loki knows that Thor's scowl slowly grows deeper, that his brows knit further and further the madder he gets.

And, look. Thor's eyebrows are starting to come together as he leans closer to Loki, getting in his face (Loki knows it's a tactic Thor uses to intimidate him. Does it work, you ask? Kind of.) and answering, "It was _too loud_, Loki. And it's getting late."

To be honest, this is probably one of _the most_ ridiculous things to get in a fight over right now. To be honest, neither brother cares that much. There's too much testosterone in the air to worry about the idiocy of this whole situation.

Loki's face splits into a manic grin, and he laughs, free and absurd. It's not a pretty sound at all; it's filled with malice and sarcasm and _bite_, and it makes Thor's grimace intensify a whole fucking lot. Tilting his head spitefully, Loki replies, "That doesn't seem to bother you when it's _your _music, Thor. Double standards aren't cool in my book."

And then Thor is grabbing Loki by the front of his Henley and dragging him up, and only the tips of Loki's toes are touching the ground, and Thor is glaring _right in his face_ and holding him _up in the air_ and suddenly Loki feels helpless and sixteen and _weak _again and he's more upset than angry now and oh God, oh God, _oh God_.

"You'd do better to not piss me off, Loki," Thor growls, and _really_, that's kind of an inane thing to say when he's obviously already outraged. For whatever reason, Thor tends to spout a lot of pointless shit when he's pissed, and while Loki guesses that it's probably only to make himself look tough, it still doesn't _not_ aggravate the fuck out of him.

Loki tenses up, but he doesn't writhe in his brother's vice-like grip; he's smart enough to know not to struggle, now, when Thor is so much stronger than he is. So, instead of fighting with his hands, he uses his words. Against Thor, his tongue has always been his main advantage.

"And _you'd_ do better not to hurt me, Thor," Loki replies with a forced calmness. He steadfastly holds his brother's gaze as he adds, "I'll have you out of my house in a heartbeat if you hit me, and then where will you go?"

They both know the unspoken answer to that question: back to Mother and Father's, back _home_. That's the last place Thor wants to be right now, when he's so free and awesome and full of life.

The resentful, grudge-holding part of Loki wants Thor to strike him, just so he has a really good reason to kick his brother's ass to the curb. But the childish, heartful part of him wishes for just the opposite, because deep down, Loki _wants_ Thor to stay, simply out of an impossible hope that things can get better between them. Keyword: _impossible_ (Loki doubts they'll truly be fixed after what the accident did to his brain and Thor's body; the toll the car crash took on them is engraved deep within both of their minds and hearts).

Loki can see the conflict flashing across Thor's face, can hear the gears turning in his brother's thick head. He watches Thor with careful indifference, making sure he remains seamlessly composed on the surface so as to not sway the man. With every second that passes the feat grows more difficult, and just when Loki thinks he's going to start screaming or crying (or both) out of frustration/fear/depression, Thor's rankled expression smoothes over and he sets his brother back on the ground, gently. Loki chokes back a relieved sigh.

"You're right," Thor huffs, and he's actually _looking_ at Loki as he says this (which is _great_, because Thor usually avoids Loki's eyes when he's telling him stuff like this). He runs a meaty hand through his golden hair and exhales sharply, frowning in what looks like shame or exhaustion.

Loki is absently smoothing out his shirt as he watches Thor with wide eyes, and he can't help but feel a little guilty as well (_damn __**emotions**_). Before his older brother can break into this long-winded apology that makes him feel like a dick, he says, "You're right, too, okay? Now, can we go one night fight-free, please?"

Thor looks a little taken aback for a moment, like he's shocked that Loki doesn't _enjoy _their fighting or something (why the fuck would he do that?), then nods lamely without a word. And then everything is suddenly and horribly awkward. And then Fandral and Sif start obnoxiously calling for Thor from inside the house. And then Loki luckily remembers that he needs to go to bed if he doesn't want his morning to be unbearable tomorrow.

_(Exeunt Loki and Thor.)_

* * *

**More A/N: In the very small, single instance where Fenrir's nosing Loki's messy hair, I was thinking about that interview Tom did with the Loki hair… I hope you know what I'm talking about, since I can't put a link here. But, yeah. His hair is slicked but just a little curly and disheveled, and that's pretty much where that random bit came from.**

**The White Stripes song that starts with the bass guitar is Seven Nation Army if you didn't figure that out/know.**

**Sorry about how sloppy and roller coaster-esque the last part is; it was written over the course of about ten hours total. I am serious. I was moving around and half the time laughing my ass off with my family and half the time depressed out of my mind and I took a huge break to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, so yeah. If that part seems inconsistent and messy in the tone department, that's why. I went back and cleaned it up a bit, but. I don't blame you if you get confused.**

**One more thing: the last line is written in the style of stage directions for theatre for the non-acting folk who don't know that. Don't mind me and my theatre humor.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, loves. :]**

**- Gabi.**


	4. Book Duty

**Title:** Book Duty  
Rating: PG-13 for language and suggestive themes.  
**Word Count:** ~3200  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, Kitty Pryde; some light, somewhat unrequited, playful Tony x Loki (it's complicated).  
Spoilers: None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Sarcastic!Loki, Wistful!Angsty!Tony if you squint, random Marvel characters are mentioned.  
**Summary:** He's on book duty today. He fucking _hates _book duty. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So, this one really doesn't have Thor in it, but he's mentioned quite a bit and this_ is_ part of the Brothers!verse. Basically this one is to expose Loki's work life and his relationship with Tony, because I developed a guilty pleasure for BFF!Tony. Also, this is a pseudo-introduction to another story I plan to write, which will follow up to this. You might want to read _Brothers Extraordinaire_ and other things in this verse before starting this; I strongly recommend it.

* * *

He's on book duty today. He fucking _hates _book duty, so you can probably guess that by the time he gets home, he'll be super/ultra/mega-pissed and _definitely _not in the mood for Thor White and the Four Dwarves. But then, when is he _ever_ in the mood for their bullshit?

But, anyways. Book duty.

Loki hates book duty because he _despises_ the Dewey decimal system with the passion of a thousand night stallions. It's not that he doesn't understand it (_of course_ he understands it). Loki just believes that, while a smart way to organize a library, it's a massive waste of time to keep up when ninety-five percent of the student body doesn't give a flying fuck about following it. He's lost count of how many times he's found a book about something like astronomy written by Somebody Douglas in the mythology section between books by Asshole Reyes and WhoDat Riback. Do you know how fucking _aggravating_ that is?

But, it gets him his wages, so Loki's learned not to complain too much about it to anyone besides Fenrir, Frigga, and Tony.

Loki's pulling a biography on Charles Dickens from between a book about Norse mythology and another about sirens when a face suddenly appears on the other side of the shelf. He almost screams like a girl when he sees it (and _believe_ me, he's done that many times before), but thankfully he possesses good self-restraint and a hefty desire to keep his job. The face laughs, and Loki glares in response.

"Fuck you," Loki hisses, resisting the urge to shove the book back onto the shelf and smash his friend's nose in with it.

"Aww, _Loki_," Tony drawls, and Loki can hear the laugh in the man's voice as he adds, "Did I scare you?" Tony grins, poking his face further into the shelf. Loki won't have it.

Briefly but firmly reaching through the shelf to thrust his hand at Tony's face, managing the man all the way out of the shelf when he does, Loki turns back to his cart and drops the Charles Dickens biography next to a volume of _World Book_.

"You ask the stupidest questions sometimes, Tony," he replies in a voice loud enough for his friend to hear but still low enough to be considered library-appropriate. There's no heat in the comment, though, and both of them know that.

As Loki pushes his cart further down the aisle, his eyes quickly and expertly scanning the shelves for irregularities, he can hear Tony's light footsteps and instantly tell that the man is jogging around to meet him. By the time Tony gets to him, he's reordering three books by the authors' last names. _The last librarian must've gotten confused_, he thinks with a sigh.

"I spy a topography book on the eleventh shelf, my friend," Tony easily points out, leaning against a series of Greek epics.

"Look at you go, paying attention to _books_," Loki jests, throwing Tony a smirk. He brushes a lock of hair out of his face and goes on, "I think my poisonous, bibliophilic influence is rubbing off on you, Anthony."

Tony shoves Loki's shoulder somewhat forcefully, jokingly, and groans, "Obviously I need to stop hanging around here so much. This is _what_? The _third_ time this week I've been to the library? That's fucking _scary_."

Loki's smirk turns into a grin as he gets on his tip-toes, extending his long fingers to try and reach the book, to no avail. Even _Thor_ probably couldn't snatch that book.

"You come because you love me," Loki replies in a slightly strained voice, quickly adding, "And no '_that's what she said_' in the library."

Tony laughs rather loudly at that (Loki knows it's because he guessed Tony's potential response to his first statement with near-total accuracy), and Loki barely stops himself from shushing him. After his chuckling subsides, though, the man simply asks, "You need some help, shorty?"

Loki regains his normal height and gives Tony an even look. "I'm not _short_, Tony," he indicates curtly, nodding despite himself and answering his friend's question with a, "Yes, please."

Tony grins and kneels, and Loki momentarily considers making a joke about bowing or something before ultimately deciding against it. Instead, he gingerly moves to rest his thighs on each one of his friend's broad shoulders, involuntarily clutching at the shelf next to him when Tony grasps his legs and rises from his crouch in a fluid motion. Tony peers up at him.

"You okay?" he asks as Loki balances himself on his shoulders.

Loki huffs, replies, "Mmhmm," and starts searching for the rogue topography book Tony located. He vaguely wonders why the hell someone would put such a book in the mythology section, especially so high up, before finding and removing the object.

Placing his hands on the shelf so he doesn't spontaneously fall and bust his face on an encyclopedia of mythical creatures, Loki says, "I got it."

Tony slowly eases onto his knees again, letting Loki down and not moving until the man's feet are firmly on the ground. When he gets up, Loki is placing the topography book in his cart. He follows him keenly as he moves down the aisle.

"Are you afraid of heights?" Tony asks absently, moving to walk in step with Loki. Loki can't help but snort at the question.

For some reason, people have assumed that Loki was afraid of heights his entire life. Both of his parents and all of his cousins thought so. His classmates at school believed it. Fuck, even random people at the rock-climbing or roller coaster stations _at the fair_ thought he was acrophobic. At first, Loki was irritated by the seemingly baseless theories. He had not one idea _why_ everyone thought he was so terrified of heights. But then it dawned on him:

In situations regarding such heights, he was almost _always_ next to/around Thor in some way, shape, or form.

The first time the Skywalkers moved into a new house, Odin and Frigga decided to get Thor and Loki a bunk bed, both to save some space and give the brothers a sense of adventure and fun when going to bed (as if they really needed one; they already had _each other_). As soon as the thing was assembled, Thor had been almost violently adamant and vocal about claiming the top bunk.

Now, if you don't pay very close attention and have a propensity to make offhanded assumptions, it could either seem like a) Thor _really_ fucking liked the top bunk, b) Loki disliked the top bunk, or c) both. It makes sense in an incredibly stupid way to think Loki is afraid of heights based on a comparison between he and Thor's enthusiasm and desire for the top bunk; Loki actually didn't care all that much, so you could say his want for the higher ground paled drastically next to Thor's.

Makes sense, right? Right. (Wrong.)

The same thing happened at school and at fairs. Thor was always passionate about his aspiration to use the monkey bars or get on the huge, deadly slide of huge death, to climb to the top of the tallest rock-climbing wall or ride the scariest, riskiest, most physics-defying roller coaster of all time. By contrast, Loki would either be particularly apathetic or only mildly interested in these activities. He'd much prefer to do something like read a book or get his face painted (the _sissy_).

It wasn't that he was afraid of heights. Loki just isn't an adrenaline junkie like his brother.

"No," Loki easily replies, rearranging a couple of books as he does, "I'm just not a fan of breaking my neck, that's all."

Tony breathes a tiny laugh, ever-watching of Loki's actions. "Smart cookie," he notes, and _goddamn_, Loki _really_ fucking loves Tony. He really does.

"That's me," he replies, perfectly comfortable with Tony's trailing after him.

The next hour pretty much goes on just like that, with Tony following Loki like a lost puppy, helping him sort and fix the shelves, asking stupid questions that are exactly and so utterly _Tony_, and Loki half-working and half-listening to his friend. Occasionally, one of them will say something that has the other (or both of them, because that tends to happen with Loki and Tony) laughing so hard that they have to stop walking, or Loki has to tell Tony to shut up before he gets fired, or Tony has to be an asshole and tickle Loki or something and just make everything worse because that's what he's best at.

Tony really _isn't_ that good for Loki's health/work life/emotional stability. Then again, Loki honestly doesn't care about that, especially if it means going home is a little more bearable due to the wonderful mood Tony puts him in. They're pretty great friends if you haven't figured that out already.

Despite that, Loki is actually starting to get scared of the prospect of Tony visiting him at the library so often. He really likes his job, and, even though he likes Tony _more_, he needs to make his money.

During his break (which is a meager twenty-five minutes), Loki and Tony escape to the employee lounge, where Tony buys Loki a Pop-Tart (instead of the Wheat Thins he wanted, _fuck_, Tony) and a Root Beer (instead of Dasani, _Tony_).

"So what's it gonna be?" Tony asks, leaning back in his chair and sipping from Loki's A&W. The man scratches idly at his brow (Loki automatically knows that means he's itching for a cigarette) and adds, "On a scale of one to 9-11, how bad will the damage be today?"

Loki delicately breaks the corner off of his blueberry Pop-Tart and nibbles thoughtfully at it. "I predict that it'll somewhere around _forest fire_ on the damage scale," he replies, watching Tony somewhat apprehensively from where he sits atop the break table. He forces an easy smile (even though he knows Tony can tell how fake it is), asks, "Care to be my extinguisher?"

Thor White and the Four Dwarves haven't met Tony yet, and Loki has contemplated (many, _many_ times) the advantageousness of having his friend as a buffer, a sort of happy pill to numb the effects his brother's antics have on him.

Tony frowns a bit, scratching his brow again. As Loki thoughtlessly snatches Tony's hand away from his face and relocates it to his lap, Tony answers, "You know I'd love to, but I might not be able. Pepper asked me to wait for her to call me because she needs a ride to a party or something."

Loki's expression mirrors Tony's as he takes another bite out of his Pop-Tart, distractedly playing with the man's fingers. He mentally notes how thin and pale his hands are compared to Tony's tan, worked ones, and the observation leads him to realize that that comparison applies to both of them in general, which then makes him wonder why that difference makes him feel so inferior when applied to him and Thor, and so at home when it's about him and Tony.

Life is funny that way.

Loki realizes he hasn't said anything for awhile when Tony asks, "Loki?" He's using his quiet, short voice, the one he only uses when he's trying to tell you to piss off or when he's worried. This time, the latter is the most likely.

"Hmm?" Loki hums, looking up to meet Tony's eyes. He kind of regrets the decision now, though, because Tony's watching him _really_ intently and suddenly, Loki's not holding his hand but Tony's holding his and his eyes are soft and nothing exists but them and–

Loki doesn't like to feel that way, because it's like falling into what you thought was a bathtub but what really turns out to be an ocean. Actually, _everything_ about Tony feels like that, but it's when he's practically on his _knees_ for Loki that it turns unpleasant.

"It's okay," Tony says, and _goddammit_, Loki already _knows_ that. The man is studying his face when he says, "You can always stay at my place."

Loki shakes his head a little too quickly at that, looks down to hide how _off_ he feels all of a sudden. "I can't, actually," he replies, and when Tony makes a confused noise, he clarifies, "If I leave my house to Thor for one night without any supervision, I could come back and find it totally nuked or something."

Tony is silent for a few moments, and Loki knows that means he's trying to think of something to say that won't upset him further or sound patronizing. Loki passes the time by eating his Pop-Tart and squeezing each one of Tony's fingers; it's his way of telling his friend _It's okay that you make me feel awkward and small_.

Finally, Tony sighs and says, "Fine, Loki. I just worry about your mental health, that's all."

Loki feels Tony squeeze his hand back, and he anticipates what's coming early enough to meet his friend halfway. Quickly raising his head, Loki leans forward and shares a brief, solid kiss with Tony, smiling a bit when the other man does.

To a bystander, that might have automatically meant _Love, marriage, and a baby in a baby carriage_. To Loki and Tony, that meant _You're my best friend so I can do this with you_. To Loki alone, that meant _He's way too affectionate but I love him anyways_. To Tony alone, that meant _I love him more than life_.

There's a lot of different kinds of love playing into this, if you haven't noticed.

"I'm not completely insane, yet. Don't worry," Loki replies, finishing off his Pop-Tart and taking a long drag of A&W (oh _God_, would you take a look at that sugar intake?). Thankfully, Tony's hangdog, wistful expression fades into his default shit-eating smirk.

"You sure about that?" he drawls, leaning forward to steal Loki's A&W again. Tony grins, adds, "You're a little cray-cray, in my humble opinion."

Before Tony can drink from his can, Loki snatches it right out of his hand, leaving the man completely bewildered and cupping air. Loki downs it, drops the aluminum can on the table beside him, and leans over to press a comparatively teasing kiss to Tony's forehead. He hops gracefully to the floor, starting for the door and calling in a mischievous tone, "Only crazy for you, love."

It would be accurate to say that he's not totally lying. He's actually being pretty damn truthful, for once.

Loki's fixing to exit the break room when suddenly, two thick arms wrap around his middle and he's being lifted off of the ground and _oh my God oh my God __**oh my God**_.

Loki starts screaming. Like, uncontrolled, unanticipated, animalistic _howling _kind of screaming.

"_Tony!_" he wails as said man starts _spinning him around_ in the air. He's kicking and flailing around like a freaking octopus, yelling loud enough for the _whole goddamn library_ to probably hear him, "_Let me go!_"

Tony laughs a huge, beautiful, completely douchey laugh and replies, "But I can't! I just love you _so_ much!"

"_TonyTonyTonyTonyTony…!_" Loki is shrieking like a cat submerged in water, reaching around to slap at Tony's face and body or whatever he can actually get his hands on. He thinks he lands a blow on his cheek, but he can't really be sure because he's _freaking the fuck __**out**_ so damn bad.

Tony suddenly stops spinning him (he doesn't _put him down_, though), and then both he and Loki are just sitting there, panting like dogs. The man rests his face against the small of Loki's back, and Loki can feel the sharp curve of Tony's nose, the warm gusts of his breath through his shirt as he says, "I always wanted to hear you call my name like that. Granted, I wanted you _in my bed_ when you did, but this works."

"Asshole," Loki snarls, not really that angry, and digs his heel into Tony's thigh, hoping to deter his friend. It doesn't work, though. Of course.

"How'd you guess?" Tony asks, running a suggestive hand up Loki's front and laughing, "That's where I was gonna put my dick."

And then Tony starts spinning him again and Loki resumes his screaming, writhing like a fish out of water in his friend's grip. If only he was as slippery as one.

"Oh my God, _Tony, __**stop**__!_" he cries, his yelling giving way to wild laughter as Tony grins and chuckles against his back. Loki hates it but he loves it, hates the feeling of being held off the ground against his will, hates the turning and the vertigo but loves that Tony's the one holding him, loves that he's being held _at all _and so tightly.

And then Kitty has to walk into the room.

Loki and Tony freeze, watching Kitty in abject fear. Her eyes widen when she sees them, and Loki knows that her astonished reaction is not only due to the unusual nature of the situation, but also because of the fact that none of his coworkers have _ever_ seen him in such a carefree and unrestrained position (even when Tony's around).

Before she can say anything, Loki forcefully tells Kitty, "Do not tell anyone about this, understand? I can't have Professor X hearing about this and firing me." He emphasizes his command by pointing at her, and a part of him feels really _guilty_ about doing that because Kitty is probably the sweetest, most innocent librarian here. Plus, she's a freshman, and, unlike Thor, Loki doesn't plan to make a habit of terrorizing the underclassmen.

It's just that he _can't _lose his job because of _Tony_.

Kitty nods quickly, pushing her glasses up her nose and clutching her bag closer to her. She looks a little scared and small standing in the doorway like that, and _fuck_, does Loki feel like a dick.

And then Kitty says, "I just came to tell you that Kurt says your break is over and…" She pauses, blushes. "… and to stop fooling around with your boyfriend."

Then Kitty practically runs away, the door swinging shut behind her. Tony still has Loki hoisted up in the air, and he can't get his friend to the ground fast enough before the starts spontaneously combusting from anger.

"Fucking _Kurt_," Loki mutters, running a frustrated hand through his inky hair. He turns to look at Tony, who has his arms loosely crossed and a pensive expression on his face. The man is watching him almost curiously.

"What?" Loki asks, just a bit irritated. Tony smiles a little, and, while the expression is mostly innocent, Loki's eyes are practiced enough to see the hint of mischief in the grin.

"So am I your boyfriend now?" Tony asks, simpering playfully. His smirk turns into a pleased laugh when Loki shoves him by his shoulders, and Loki is just _so_ _**happy**_ that Tony knows just how to tease him into a better mood.

Sighing softly, Loki moves to hug Tony, smiling when the man hugs him back. "You know I'm your best friend, Tony," he replies.

"Aw, damn," Tony whines good-naturedly as they pull away from each other. He trails Loki to the door, ever the man's lapdog.

Before exiting, though, Loki stops and turns to Tony, watching him with thoughtful, serious emerald eyes.

"You know that saying, '_just because somebody doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have_'?" he asks quietly.

Tony goes still, gazing heavily at him. Loki gets that falling feeling again when Tony reaches forward and takes his hand, squeezing it gently. All he can hear is the man's breathing.

Finally, Tony says, "Yeah, Loki."

Loki doesn't smile, but the expression on his face couldn't be described as a frown or an apathetic mask. It's a tad shy of satisfied, just barely noticeable, but Loki knows Tony can see it.

"Remember that," he says, walking out of the break room.

Tony follows after.

(to be continued.)

* * *

**More A/N: So this did the same thing as the last one by starting off as something meant to be humorous and taking dramatic turns out of nowhere. Thankfully it stayed kinda funny throughout the bulk of it, though. I hope it isn't obvious, but these are mostly written impulsively; whatever happens is usually something unplanned and spontaneous.**

**Whenever I write Tony in this verse, I'm thinking about RDJ when he was a young actor. Like, RDJ with the "Brat" shirt and cigarette young. **

**As for the Skywalker thing, I read somewhere that the Vikings referred to Loki as "Skywalker". The Star Wars geek in me started freaking out about it, and after doing more research, I found that there were parallels between Loki's story in Norse mythology and Luke's story in Star Wars. So, even though Skywalker wasn't a name associated with Odin, Frigga, or Thor, I thought it fit what with Odin being a sky god (kinda) and Thor being the god of thunder.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, loves. :]**

**- Gabi.**


	5. Dying of Frustration

**Title:** Dying of Frustration.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~6200  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Sif, Tony Stark; some somewhat unrequited, horribly complicated Tony/Loki.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Pissy!Sarcastic!Angsty!Loki, Douche!Fandral, depression, general confusion.  
**Summary:** Did they bring a fucking _zoo_ through the house? Sell all his food for money? Loki ponders these things while staring at his miniature Minnie Mouse, eyes watering and stinging relentlessly. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So, this is a sequel to _Book Duty_. The title is taken from a lyric in the song _Yes_ by Coldplay. Uhm, I really don't have much to say at the moment, but heed the warnings listed above; there be _major angst-age_, and I feel like my writing and the situations get increasingly confusing as the story goes on. Also, I'm at the point where I'm shipping Tony/Loki _really fucking hard_, and some of that translated into this story. But, let me make it clear that Loki and Tony aren't an item here, and at this moment in time, I don't plan on making them one in this verse. The most you can hope for right now is a friends-with-benefits relationship. Anyways. You might want to read _Brothers Extraordinaire_ and other things in this verse before starting this; I strongly recommend it.

* * *

So he feels pretty good when he leaves the library. It's around eight o'clock and he's exhausted as well as hungry, but his spirits are high after today's events. Tony walked him to his car and they spent a good fifteen minutes playfully arguing with each other about how Loki probably shouldn't go home and ruin his mood, how Tony is Loki's knight in shining armor, blah-_blah_-_**blah**_, and to be honest? Loki _loves_ that Tony will bicker with him almost every time they hang out. It feels really nice in an odd way to debate with someone other than Thor, someone who doesn't get under his skin and make him feel crazy in less-than-pleasant ways. But, anyways. About his awesome, practically glowing mood.

Loki listened to Coldplay all the way home, so that's ten additional happiness points. The weather is nice enough for him to roll down the windows; plus five. Traffic is amazing; plus seven.

It's when Loki is turning onto his street that he starts to physically _tense up_ (like, _clutching the steering wheel, not letting his back touch the seat, legs locking _tensing up), and that's _sad_, because the action is pretty much involuntary by now. Only the thought of Tony jokingly telling him that he needs to take up meditation and Zen practices calms Loki down a degree.

Loki pulls into the driveway and keys his car off, and instead of immediately moving to get out, he just sits in the safety of his cockpit, staring blankly at the dashboard. His eyes slowly stray to his house, and he gazes at the curtained window as if he'll be able to see through it to what's going on inside if he looks long enough.

With a small sigh, Loki snatches his keys, absently clutching at the Minnie Mouse keychain Tony gave him a month ago (he claims they were out of Mickey ones at the store, but Loki thinks that Tony just enjoys teasing him a whole fucking lot) to try and soothe himself. He's learned that there's almost no use in expressing his anger anymore; calmness and indifference actually turn out to be more effective.

Grabbing his backpack from the passenger seat, Loki exits his Elantra, making sure to lock the doors, and starts for his house. His mood significantly drops when he remembers that he has to read a whole chapter in his psychology text tonight for homework, not to mention the fact that his stomach is practically speaking to him. _Fuck._

All the love and Pop-Tarts Tony could ever give him can't really battle things like homework and hunger and bipolar disorder and blockheaded brothers. How regrettable.

Summoning all the courage he can, Loki quickly slides his key into its lock and pushes the front door open, holding his breath in preparation for the horrors he might behold. And as it turns out, things actually aren't _that_ horrible (yet).

Thor and Fandral are at it on the X-Box, attentions completely consumed by what Loki thinks (but can't be sure, since he doesn't pay too much mind to the stupid games Thor plays) is _Call of Duty_ or something, while Sif and Volstagg are loudly and obnoxiously yelling directives to the two of them and Hogun silently texts _somebody_. Sif is practically draped over Thor, and the sight of her irks Loki more than he cares to say (it's mostly because he knows that the probability of Sif staying overnight just went up in percentage).

"Hey, Loki," Thor greets him distractedly, the majority of his focus on his game. He's virtually stabbing at the buttons on his controller with his thumbs, and Loki briefly wonders how those flimsy plastic devices are hardy enough to withstand constant abuse by Thor and his friends.

"Salutations," Loki throws back, moving towards the kitchen after his stomach growls at him to. He's in the mood for something meaty and a shot of caffeine that will keep him up long enough to finish his homework tonight. Just as he's passing through the doorway, Fandral's voice stops him like a hand on the shoulder.

"Welcome home, hot stuff," the man calls after him, and _really_, this nonstop sexual harassment in his own home is seriously starting to get to Loki. The statement is ended with an air of challenge, like Fandral is just _daring_ him to respond. Fucking asshole.

Instead of indulging Fandral, Loki just continues his journey into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief at the _emptiness_ of the room. He's immensely pleased with the fact that Fandral and Volstagg are too occupied to hunt him down (thank _gods_). Loki haphazardly drops his backpack onto the kitchen table, swiftly makes his way over to the refrigerator and cracks the door open to peek inside.

At first he thinks he's seeing things, because things like _this_ simply _don't_ happen. Just to be certain, Loki closes and reopens the fridge door, pushing for temporary insanity as a justification for his apparently faulty vision.

But no, he can see just fine. _Perfectly_, in fact, and this is why Loki has to bite down really fucking _hard_ on his lip to stifle the howl fighting to escape his throat.

In the fridge, what does he see? (Guess. Go ahead.)

Nothing. Zilch. Absolutely nada. To be frank and completely faithful to the emotions connected to this moment, there _ain't __**shit**__ there_.

Well, if you chance a second look, you'll notice that there's a mostly-empty carton of milk, a couple of Gatorades, and some half and half, along with a single tomato on the bottom shelf, but otherwise? The fridge is a goddamn void.

Now, Loki has never had a panic attack before, but he's heard about what they're like from his psychiatrist. The whole hyperventilating like crazy, shaking as if you're sick, throat suddenly tight as fuck deal seemed pretty mild to him when he was just being told about the symptoms, but now Loki is breathing faster and trembling a little and he can't swallow right and it really, _really_ scares him.

He feels like he's going to explode.

Movements now sharp and jerky, Loki yanks the freezer door open and peers into it. There's ice and a jug of water left to cool inside. _Wow_.

And then Loki is tearing through the kitchen, searching for _where the __**fuck**_ all of his food went. He comes up with a box of instant macaroni and some crackers in the cabinet, a plethora of obligatory but useless condiments, and a couple of fucking _bananas_ on the kitchen table. When he looks in the trashcan, he finds a graveyard of food items, all gone; every box and container emptied, with soda cans and Gatorade bottles nearly spilling out of the garbage bin. And Loki can't help himself.

Silently, he goes to sit at the kitchen table, folding his arms over his backpack and resting his forehead against them. He sniffs, biting his lip against a scream or a sob, and lets himself shed a few quiet tears just to get some of the hurt out of him.

All of his food, _gone_. It's normal for him to come home and find the fridge somewhat bare; usually he can salvage some vegetables and cheese, maybe a few bagels. He has bread and Gatorade and fruit and cereal when he returns for the night. He's safe. _Never_ has Loki come home to find virtually _nothing _in his kitchen.

Did they bring a fucking _zoo_ through the house? Sell all his food for money? Loki ponders these things while staring at his miniature Minnie Mouse, his eyes watering and stinging relentlessly.

He considers blowing up like a fucking volcano on Thor, considers throwing him out, considers kicking his ass (even though he knows that the second he touched Thor, he'd be broken in half like a twig), considers taking Tony up on his offer, considers calling Frigga, considers simply crying until he drowns in a sea of tears, where he doesn't have to worry about things like food and sanity anymore. He considers a lot of things for a long time, and it isn't until he realizes that it's _eight-thirty_ that he finally decides what he's going to do. And it's a stupid, unhealthy, very uncharacteristic decision, but keep in mind that Loki is heartbroken, starving, and _really_ needs to finish his homework.

Thinking quickly, Loki grabs his backpack and keys back up and heads for the door, not bothering to school his expression into indifference or relaxation. At this point, he doesn't give a flying fuck about whether or not Thor and his _posse_ see his pain.

They probably won't even notice.

As Loki passes into the living room, pulling his backpack strap over his left shoulder (fun fact: Loki is sinistral and is therefore dominant in just about everything on his left side), Thor and Fandral are in the process of switching _Call of Duty_ out for another bullshit game he doesn't know the name of. Thor looks up as his brother heads for the door, face a mask of curiosity.

"Where're you goin', Loki?" the man asks, and when Loki turns to look at him, he notes with a small thrill of something like _relief_ that Thor's expression takes on a hint of concern and surprise at what he assumes is the distress written all in his face and body language.

"McDonalds, unfortunately," Loki replies drily and with a trace of reluctance, his voice breaking almost satisfactorily (to him, of course) at the end of his statement.

Little does he know that the wonderful word _McDonalds _is like the equivalent of an alarm or a beeper to Fandral and Volstagg. Such lack of awareness is odd, though, because one should expect something like that, right? (Maybe not. It takes a grand amount of inferring to predict something like that.)

"_McDonalds_?" Volstagg asks, looking up from the beer bottle he was previously staring down the neck of (it's now when Loki notices the empty tub of ice cream on the coffee table and the assortment of drink containers all around the room). Loki feels incredibly uncomfortable at the question for whatever reason, like he'll start throwing up if he's forced to give the asker a straight answer. Actually, he would fancy a good vomit right now; anything to get out the disgust and misery that plagues his system like a disease.

"I believe that's what I said," Loki manages, trying to squeeze enough sarcasm and venom to put an elephant down into the response. He really wants to get the _fuck_ out of the house now, though, so he's clutching the doorknob hard enough to turn his knuckles white (figuratively, of course, because Loki's knuckles are already pretty white) and avoiding eye contact with everyone in the world right now, hoping they'll take the hint.

And then Fandral asks the most horrible question, and it's so fucking _infuriating_ that Loki thinks his eyes are going to melt in their sockets so fire can shoot from them and his head will split open to expose his skull from the sheer enormity of the _rage_ he feels. Yeah. It's _that_ bad.

"Can you pick something up for us?" this bitch asks. Cue the above reaction. Externally, the only thing that tips you off to Loki's wrath is the subtle arch his eyebrows take on, the way his lips tighten at the corners and his eyes slowly but surely become very wide and very green.

(Have another fun fact: Loki was born with green eyes, and they're listed as such on his birth certificate. However, when he wears light colors or blue, they appear to be blue. When he wears dark colors or green, which is often, they look green. And even weirder, when he wears red or some other similarly vibrant color, the irises turn this weird green-ish but gray but also blue with flecks of gold color. To make things even more complicated, Loki's eyes also change color based on what mood he's in; they tend to tip towards the green end of the spectrum as he feels more passionately, and towards the blue when he's mellow. It's odd and confusing, but Frigga's eyes do the same thing and she likes to call Loki her chameleon, so he doesn't feel that bad or weird about it.)

"Excuse me?" Loki bites out, his voice emerging strangled-sounding and weak from his throat. It's a little embarrassing if you think about it, but Loki can't find it in him to give too many fucks right now.

Fandral regards him with a peculiar expression, almost as if he didn't expect Loki to question him, and he looks like he's about to (foolishly) _say something back_ (oh, hell to the fuck _no_) when Thor interrupts him.

"We'll pay you, Loki. It's okay," Thor interjects, and Loki quickly turns his ireful eyes on his brother. He looks considerably more anxious now, and whether it's because of Loki's anger or for Fandral's safety, Loki doesn't know. And, _**no**__, it's __**not**__ fucking __**okay**_.

Crossing his arms tightly over his chest and leaning somewhat passive-aggressively against the door, Loki snarls with an element of out-of-place pleasantry, "Oh, like a prostitute? Yeah, that's _okay_."

"Loki, he didn't mean it that way," Sif replies, and Loki almost (does) want to yell at her for it. How _dare_ she answer a question meant for his brother?

You see, Loki wanted _Thor_ to be the one contemplating how to answer a question like that, one with so many layers and insinuations of pain and rejection. Because, of course, it wasn't meant to be taken _literally_. Loki vainly hoped that Thor would understand how he felt, and the best way he could express that at that very moment was through a metaphor.

But fucking Sif with her fucking defensiveness and fucking motherly instincts had to fuck everything the fuck up. Fuck.

"Yeah," Thor adds, giving Sif a slightly thankful look that absolutely _disgusts_ Loki, "I'm sorry."

_For what?_ is what Loki wants to ask. He's squeezing his hand around his keys until the metal grooves of them dig into his palm and leave red indentations in their wake, looking at Thor and waiting for him to see him, like, actually _see _him.

"Make a list, then," is what Loki ends up saying, letting his gaze stray to the ground. He listens to the sounds of Fandral and Thor searching for something to write on, of the five of them (Thor's _friends_; him not being a part of them) exchanging orders for Hogun to record, and it isn't until Fandral approaches him with a piece of paper and two bills; a twenty and a five, that he looks up.

Fandral smiles when Loki meets his eyes, and, for once, the expression doesn't look sinful or lustful. Loki doesn't care that much in his resentment, though, and he snatches the papers from Fandral's hands, quickly turning to unlock and open the door.

"You're welcome," he snaps as he walks out into the approaching darkness of the night. Not looking back, Loki calls, "Lock the door."

Fandral laughs quietly, the _fucking __**asshole**_, and replies, "Thanks, kitten," before closing the door.

Kitten. _Kitten_.

Loki spins around fast enough to give himself whiplash, yanking his lanyard from around his neck and hurling it as _hard_ as he fucking can at the door. It hits the wooden plank with a rewardingly loud _thump_, and before he can stop himself, Loki _howls_ at the door, screams raucous and horrible at it. He sounds like an animal in pain. Fuck, he _feels_ like an animal in pain.

Loki quickly gets in his Elantra, throwing his backpack in the passenger seat, keying his car into drive, and digging his cellphone out of his pocket at the same time. Expertly punching in his speed dial two, he pulls out of the driveway, angling his cellphone between his shoulder and ear as he speeds down the street.

After the second ring, he picks up.

"Loki?" Tony's voice asks from the other line, and while Loki can be exceptionally appreciative of his friend's inane questions, right now he is definitely _not_. He knows Tony knows it's him.

"Meet me in front of the library as soon as you can," Loki growls instead of answering, making an unnecessarily sharp turn.

There's a rather pregnant pause on the line, then, and the small part of Loki that isn't boiling with rage starts to worry that he set Tony off with his unexpected anger (even though Tony has never backed down in the face of Loki's ire, no matter how bad it's gotten). That small part begins freaking out, and Loki can feel himself start to dangerously shake from the hazardous combination of panic and wrath.

And then, _finally_, Tony says, "I'm coming." After a small pause in which Loki expels enough air from his lungs to fill a balloon, Tony adds, "Are you okay?"

As Loki forces himself to ease on the gas, quickly realizing that he's a whole seven miles over the speed limit, he breathes out a reply, "No, I'm not."

"What happened?" Tony asks in his soft, short voice that Loki both hates and loves (hates it because that means Tony cares, and when Tony cares, he gets really invested in whatever it is he cares about; loves it for the same reason). He can hear movement on the other line, the jingle of car keys and the closing of a door.

"I'll tell you when you get to the library," Loki responds, and he doesn't wait for Tony to say anything back before he hangs up, carelessly tossing his cellphone on the dashboard and squeezing both hands around the wheel. He exhales deeply again, blinking hard to try and dispel some of the fire inside him. The flames only turn to smoke, which clouds Loki's head and makes him feel dizzy, confused and drunk with emotion. While mood cycling is extremely normal to him, it isn't very enjoyable.

I guess it would be a good time to say that Loki doesn't _need _Tony or his company at the moment. He really doesn't. Loki is capable of making it through periods of intense anger and depression on his own; if he wasn't, well, then he'd have a _huge_ problem on his hands and probably wouldn't be living with _Thor_ of all people.

However, that Tony would drop everything to be with him in a moment of distress is something Loki really doesn't mind taking advantage of every now and then, especially after his friend's behavior today. He remembers what Tony told him earlier about Pepper calling, but something tells him that it won't matter that much.

Loki pulls up in front of the library and turns his car off, comforted by the abrupt silence that suddenly engulfs him. The library is closed, which makes things even better because it means no prying eyes or nosy people are milling about, pissing Loki off simply because they exist near him.

While he waits for Tony to arrive, Loki removes his psychology textbook from his backpack, props it against the steering wheel, sits Indian-style in his seat, and starts to read his assigned chapter. Clinical definitions of personality and personality types are oddly soothing to him, and he welcomes the excess of words and theory, appreciates building his understanding of himself and his friends from a purely psychological point of view.

The soft purr of an engine snaps Loki out of his reverie, and he glances out of his windshield to see Tony's almost obnoxiously red truck pull up in front of his Elantra. As Tony steps out of his Toyota, movements markedly hurried, Loki grabs his backpack and tosses it in the backseat, dog-earing his textbook and unlocking the doors.

"What's wrong?" Tony immediately asks as he slides into the passenger seat next to Loki, shutting the door firmly behind him. Loki can't help but laugh quietly when Tony reaches over and grabs him by the face, tugging him across the center console to kiss him hard on the forehead. He weakly, half-heartedly beats his fists against Tony's chest and stomach, drawing a similar laugh from the man.

When Tony releases him, Loki doesn't bother to pull away, preferring to stay close to his friend. Instead of answering Tony straight away, he asks, "Did Pepper call you yet?"

Tony makes a face at the question, replying in a snatched and harried voice, "No, but do you think I care about her going to some party when you call me sounding like a-a-a murderous beast?" He chuckles nervously towards the end of the question, but Loki knows he's seriously concerned, and that makes him feel kind of like a boss.

"I guess not," he sighs, running a hand through his raven hair and glancing out the windshield. Silence stretches on for a few moments after his breathy reply, and then it occurs to Loki that he has yet to answer Tony's first question.

"Uhm, to make a long story very short, I went home, my kitchen was empty, Thor and his _posse_…" he says the word with pronounced disgust, "… told me to go to McDonalds and pick some food up for them," Loki clarifies. And then he gets pretty scared, because Tony's eyes look like they're about to pop out of his head or something and he's really, _really_ fucking unhappy judging by the look on his face.

"They did _what_?" Tony asks, his voice full of incredulity and thinly concealed contempt. Loki feels like a shithead now; he didn't want Tony to get pissed off, too, even though he_ should_ have expected something like that, what with Tony's tendency to get territorial and overprotective where he's concerned.

"Well, to be fair I was already going to McDonalds," Loki quickly amends, but when Tony's expression goes unchanged and pain and resentment remain like fresh wounds in his heart, he sighs, "Yeah, fuck them," in a defeated tone. He sits back in his seat, gazing vacantly out of the windshield so he doesn't have to see Tony's wrecked face.

After a long pause, Tony says, "You know, Loki, I'm _really_ starting to consider kidnapping you and locking you up in my house."

Loki laughs without humor, and they both know that the funniness of the statement falls flat in the face of what Tony's really saying.

"Yeah?" Loki hums quietly, keeping his eyes focused on the bumper of Tony's truck and his disposition as indifferent as possible, even though he really doesn't mind losing it in front of Tony.

"_Yes_," Tony replies, and Loki can both hear and see him (in his periphery) shifting in his seat. "You know you can move in with me. You know you don't _have_ to stay there, and my place isn't that bad. I'll even start to clean up regularly if that makes you happy."

"It's fine, Tony," Loki says somewhat tersely.

"_No_, it's not, Loki," Tony retorts, his voice suddenly a hard, turbulent thing of desperation, and he commands, "Look at me."

Loki automatically obliges, turning to meet Tony's dark, serious eyes with his own green orbs. He observes the tense line of his friend's shoulders, the arch of his brows, and his heart aches with the knowledge that Tony _can't stand _the thought of where he is right now. Loki knows his situation is royally fucked when _Tony_ is having a harder time than he is handling the fact that he lives with Thor.

"I'm _begging _you to _please_ move in with me," Tony pleads, leaning towards Loki purposefully, "_Please_, Loki. This isn't good for your health. I need to know that you're okay."

Loki swallows thickly, forcing himself to maintain Tony's gaze.

"If I moved in with you, you'd never let me go," he says quietly, a little choked-up and feeling oddly vulnerable. He hates himself for saying that, because he knows he's shining a motherfucking beacon on one of Tony's weakness, and Tony doesn't normally go for that kind of shit.

Instead of getting upset, though, Tony offers a small smile, replies, "Of course not. That's the point."

And then Loki really wants to cry, so he does. It's not this gigantic bawl-fest that leaves him out of breath and with a sore throat (even though he really needs that). He just lets the tears collect in his eyes until they overflow onto his cheeks, and he whines, and he curls into his seat and he watches Tony's expression melt like ice cream.

"Loki…" Tony starts but doesn't finish, instead leaning forward to gently kiss his friend's eyes. It's a little too romantic for Loki's comfort, but he doesn't really care right now. He just lets Tony wrap his arms around him and gratefully hugs him back, leaning their temples together.

"I can't," Loki says after awhile, voice a bit hoarse with emotion. While he's tightening his arms around Tony's shoulders, trying to keep him in place, Tony is pulling back to look at him. His face has skepticism written all over it, and the _Are you fucking kidding me?_ goes unspoken, but not unheard.

"Why not?" Tony asks, frowning slightly. Loki reaches up to cup the man's face, tugs the corner of Tony's mouth up into a crooked smile with his thumb. He refuses to speak until Tony gives in and beams outright.

"Because…" Loki begins, closing his eyes to make it easier for him to force the words out. He really didn't want to say this, _ever_, but a part of him always knew he'd be telling it to Tony someday.

"Because deep down, I want Thor to be my brother again, okay? I want him to be there for me and give a fuck about me, and I want it to be like that fucking accident never happened, and I want to be cured and fixed and I know Thor's the only person who can do that," he says, and the words come out in a rush, like a gust of wind (Loki hates it when he speaks like that, because he sounds unintelligent and incompetent to his own ears). Loki knows he probably hurt Tony's feelings with the last part; he's very much aware of how badly Tony wants to be the one to make everything right with him.

And Loki is sitting there with his eyes closed and his hands squeezing Tony's and he knows that Thor White and the Four Dwarves are probably (or not) wondering where the fuck he is and it's nine o'clock at night and he's only a fourth of the way through his chapter and–

"Okay," Tony says. Loki opens his eyes to see Tony watching him, and the man's gaze is so lovesick and hungry that it makes him want to die.

Impulsively, Loki leans forward and kisses Tony right on the lips, framing his face with his hands. Tony makes a surprised little noise at the kiss, and Loki feels wrong but so _right_ as he parts his lips, sucks against Tony's mouth. He's doing it only because he knows he can, because, while it's horrible and uncomfortable and icky to him, it's also incredibly and oddly relieving and soothing at the same time. Plus, he'd do anything to get that look off of Tony's face, if only for a moment.

It doesn't take Tony very long to respond, and Loki is glad that the man is stealing this rare form of love from him when he's giving it up so carelessly. Tony gently sucks on his bottom lip, kisses him so, _so tenderly_ that Loki feels like he's going to start keening or burning up. He breathes out a small moan as Tony kisses the corner of his mouth, light as a feather, and Loki instinctively knows why Tony is being so careful.

Because if he wasn't, he'd be eating Loki up like a lion eats his prey, and there wouldn't be any _Stop, Tony_ or _We're just best friends_. Loki feels a twinge of guilt for tempting Tony like that, but, like I said, he's only doing it because he can, because he needs it, because he knows Tony can take it, and because they both know exactly what it means.

The next time it happens, it might be something completely different. It just depends.

"Tony?" Loki sighs, and right now they're basically breathing at each other's mouths. He's still holding Tony's face, and Tony kisses his top lip.

"Yeah?" the man replies. Loki can hear the strain in Tony's voice, and the experimental, scientific part of him wants to test exactly how much his friend can take. Slowly, he moves his hand into Tony's hair, knowing how that just about drives the man insane.

"Can you ride with me?" he asks, letting his tongue dart out to carefully trace the seam of Tony's lips because he's an asshole and is fully aware of what it's doing to his friend. Loki makes it even worse by pressing closer to Tony, sealing his lips around Tony's top one and sliding his tongue along the underside of it. It's intimate in a weird, unsettling way, and Loki isn't quite sure how he feels about it.

Tony makes a choked, groaning noise that sounds like a puppy being flushed down the toilet, and the tension between him and Loki is all but shattered when they both laugh at the oddness of the sound, cackling softly into each other's mouths. Loki's grip on Tony's face and head loosens, and the stiffness in Tony's body disappears.

"Sure, Loki," Tony chuckles after a moment, pressing forward to press a firmer, more chaste kiss to said man's lips before pulling away. Loki almost feels bad letting his friend go, and for the first time, he notices that whenever he's close to Tony, it's really hard to break with him after. Their relationship is weird.

"You're not worried about Pepper?" Loki chances, straightening himself out in his seat and reaching for his keys to turn his car on. He glances at the clock on the dashboard and almost laughs aloud at the time; it's nine-o-seven, nearly a half-hour after he left home. And he's spent almost fifteen minutes of that half-hour arguing and making out with his best friend. Only Loki can feel accomplished about something like that.

Tony barks a laugh, relaxing against his seat and replying, "Next to you, no."

The answer is perfect for Loki.

So he drives to McDonalds and listens to Tony talk to him about sweet things and nonsense, letting the anger seep out of him for now. While they wait in the drive-thru, Loki reads his psychology text out loud to Tony after the man asks him to. He finds that, while it's a lot slower than reading silently, the method helps him understand the content a little better, especially when Tony isn't hesitant to put his two-cents in about every other statement.

Unfortunately, Loki finds that the negativity he shed on the way to McDonalds comes slithering back as he returns to the library. By the time he pulls up behind Tony's truck, he feels like he's ready to drown in his depression, and that really sucks. Hard.

"Well, I suppose this is goodnight," Loki manages, letting the engine idle. He glances at Tony, who's watching him with a deceptively passive expression. Tony smiles, so he does, too.

"Get out of the car," Tony suddenly instructs him, exiting the vehicle himself. Loki watches bemusedly as Tony drops the two heavy McDonalds bags he'd been holding into his now vacant seat, temporarily frozen in his confusion. Tony pokes his head back in the car, grinning.

"Hurry up, kitty cat," he jokes, winking at Loki before shutting the door and walking around the front of the Elantra. A pause, and then Loki is beaming and sliding out of the driver's seat, watching Tony stroll languidly towards his truck.

Notice that Loki doesn't care that Tony calls him _kitty cat_.

"What are you doing?" Loki asks with a hint of frustration, crossing his arms out of nervousness. It's nine-fifteen now and he _really_ needs to get home so he can eat and crawl into bed.

Tony stops next to the driver's side door of his truck and turns to face Loki, smiling a bit. He opens his arms and makes a beckoning sweep with them, quietly calling, "Come here."

Loki doesn't falter. He and Tony have been doing this since they were two college freshmen without any other close friends. Of course, then Loki was significantly smaller than Tony, who had always been tall and muscular.

Grinning like a child, Loki runs forward, colliding with Tony's front like a car crash and letting a high cry of laughter escape his throat when Tony lifts him from the ground and spins him around (that's the second time today Tony has done this, mind you). When they were freshman, he'd have to jump into Tony's arms to get the desired momentum, but since they're pretty much the same height now, a leap would bowl the both of them over and result in a rather disastrous embrace.

Tony chuckles softly as he halts his twirling, still clutching Loki close.

"You looked like you needed that," he says into Loki's hair, dusky and hushed, and Loki _really_ appreciates the way he's basically being held up by Tony, because, even though it's unusual, he likes to feel weak and powerless around his friend (not anyone else, though).

"I did, thank you," Loki replies, pulling away to hold Tony at an arm's length by his shoulders. Tony smirks a bit.

"Thank _you_," he says, and Loki's ninety-nine percent positive that he's referring to the kiss from earlier. His assumptions are pretty much reinforced completely when Tony winks at him again, hands tightening almost suggestively, _possessively_, at his sides.

Loki easily returns the expression, squeezing Tony's shoulders to reassure himself. "Goodnight, Tony," he murmurs, letting his friend go with an element of reluctance.

"Night, Loki," Tony calls after him as he walks to his car, and it's all Loki can do to not spontaneously burst into tears as he drives out of the library's parking lot, his friend watching him the whole way.

And so begins the gradual process of preparing himself for what he'll find when he gets home. Loki lets himself get pissy and cold (like, _subzero_ cold) again, mentally peels a layer of skin away so that he's rawer than raw.

When Loki walks in his house for the second time that night, the X-Box has been abandoned in favor of drunken screaming; apparently Thor White and the Four Dwarves are having a debate about the ferocity of random animals (sharks, alligators, and squirrels to name a few).

Only Thor looks up when Loki kicks the door shut, carefully handling his backpack and the two full McDonalds bags in his arms. The older of them smiles tipsily at the other.

"You're back," Thor remarks, pushing himself up off the sofa and stumbling over to his brother. A snatch of fear rouses in Loki; he knows very well how volatile Thor can be when he's inebriated.

"Sadly," Loki replies curtly, shoving the paper bags in his hands at his brother and grabbing his food from the top. He doesn't wait for Thor to grace him with a reply before he's walking into the kitchen in pursuit of a bottle of Gatorade he hopes is still there.

"It took you long enough!" Fandral yells from the living room, and Loki almost laughs at how fucking _pissed_ the statement makes him.

"You can fucking _die_!" Loki hollers back, sighing in relief when he spies a single, beautiful blue Gatorade in the fridge. He quickly steals it from the shelf and practically sprints from the kitchen, down the hall, and to his room. He's almost tripping over his own feet in his desperation to isolate himself.

As soon as the door is firmly shut behind Loki, Fenrir is bounding towards him, barking irritably. And Loki completely empathizes with him.

"Hey, baby," he croons as he makes his way to his bed, petting the husky's raised head as he passes. Loki offhandedly drops his backpack in the middle of the floor, past caring about the half-page he has left to read in his psychology text, and plops heavily onto his bed with a deep sigh. Fenrir rapidly and eagerly joins him.

Loki feels like his life is one of those thousand-piece puzzles you buy at the drugstore, one that you've just opened up, and the pieces are all scattered and none of them look like they'll fit together to make something. Every piece is just a random blotch of a couple of colors, and you can basically distinguish jack with a side of squat from simply looking at them individually. Do you understand what I'm getting at? Loki feels that way right now. It's fucking depressing and exhausting, and Loki thinks it's about time he gave his psychiatrist, or his mother, a call.

He eats quickly, lets Fenrir have two of his chicken nuggets and a few of his fries (which is really horrible, but Loki really doesn't possess the strength to care that much anymore tonight), before methodically stripping down to his underwear and wrapping himself in a warm, safe cocoon of blankets. Fury disappears inside him like a passing car in the rear-view mirror, giving way to crushing weariness.

A lullaby of intoxicated yells and drunken laughs muted by the walls of his home soothes Loki to sleep. Fenrir curls up beside him as he falls.

* * *

**More A/N: I think my mind is in this perpetually bipolar state, because every time I try to write these things in a humorous fashion, they come out with this majorly depressive subplot and a wistful ending of some sort. It might be kind of fitting, though, since (if it isn't clear) Loki in this verse has bipolar disorder. That'll be explained later. I think **_**satire**_** is a more accurate genre for this verse than humor is.**

**Uhm, the whole eye thing that popped up emerged because I had read something about chameleon eyes and how Tom Hiddleston most likely has them yesterday. I thought it would be cool to apply that to Loki, even though his eyes are generally accepted to be green.**

**I also want to point out that Thor was noticing how upset Loki was for those of you that thought he wasn't. Since this verse is centered around Loki and how he perceives things (mostly), that might not have been totally apparent.**

**There be more to come, loves! ****Reviews are greatly appreciated. :]**

**- Gabi.**


	6. Wet Dog Smell

**Title:** Wet Dog Smell.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~6200.  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Fenrir.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Pissy!Sarcastic!Angsty!Loki, Douchey!Emotional!Thor. Angst-age. Emotional depth.  
**Summary:** Meteorologists don't know jack these days. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So this took a longer time to finish because my computer is a fucking retard and decided to shut itself off without saving the AutoRecover file. Yeah. This might be roller coaster-esque and trippy (when is it not?), and while there is funny parts, there are also huge dramatic parts, since I can't seem to balance out my humor meter and drama meter. Uhm, there are a few _Rain Man _references; one of them is obvious, the other two not so much.

* * *

He quickly kicks the door shut with the force of an adult elephant (whoa, where'd all that strength come from?), releasing about a gallon of air from his lungs as he presses himself against the wooden plank. He decides to just stand there for a few moments, feeling too soaked and nasty and _ugh_ to move.

You see, about halfway through work, it started raining _buckets upon buckets_. That old idiom about cats and dogs? Zoo animals would be more accurate in this case. And I mean, it was _horrible_, mostly since the weather was perfectly sunny and warm and bright before the random squall, but also because of the sheer amount of water falling out of the sky. It's almost scary how fast and how hard it happened, and it _hasn't_ stopped. For an hour and a half. The weatherman said there would be a ten percent chance of rain today. _Ten percent_.

Meteorologists don't know jack these days.

Loki sniffs, pulling away from the door and easily grounding himself. His clothes feel heavy as fuck despite the fact that they aren't very excessive (a Beatles t-shirt and skinny jeans isn't much considering the time of year), and the emergency hoodie and backpack (that is thankfully _not _mesh) he's handling seem to weigh a thousand pounds, so he nearly trips onto his face from the inertia and vertigo that swings his way. Loki's hair is slick and sticking unpleasantly to his neck, and he can already feel it curling up at the ends in response to the heat inside the house. His nose drips wetly; he senses a cold creeping around the corner. Fuck.

"Loki!" Thor bellows from down the hall, and Loki really just wants to kick himself in the face now. He knows Thor's going to want to tell him some terribly exaggerated story about how he owned this freshman or scored a date with that cheerleader, how he managed to (insert outrageous verb) a (insert ridiculous noun) or (and these are the ones Loki is ninety-nine percent sure are completely _false_) outwit a teacher, which is a highly improbable if not impossible feat. How can Thor even _dream_ of outsmarting a professor when he can barely accomplish triumph over his own brother in those matters?

Groaning (but actually _whining_, more like) softly, Loki takes a step forward and outright curses at the _disgusting _feeling and sound of rainwater squishing in his shoes and between his toes. He'll have to fucking _wash and dry_ his Converse tonight, and _God_, does he hate that. With an irritated huff, Loki bends down and yanks his shoes and socks off, tossing them against the wall next to the door to be picked up later. Just as he begins to walk again, Thor skids into the doorway leading to the hall, clad in only a green tank-top and athletic shorts (Loki doesn't really blame him for it; it's fucking _hot_). The wide grin on Thor's face disappears as soon as he sees the dripping, wilting mess that is Loki, morphing into a weird amalgamation of surprise, pity, and amusement.

"Hey, Rain Man," Thor greets his brother, moving forward to meet him. He crosses his thick, muscular arms over his equally muscular chest and screws his face up into something mildly bemused, smiling carefully like if he isn't too cautious, he'll explode into hysterical laughter. And even though a wet and weepy Loki isn't _that_ funny (except it kind of is but not really yeah), Loki can't find it in him to spite his brother for it. At least he's _trying _not to be a douche.

"Bonjour, mon frère," Loki sighs, pushing past Thor to walk down the hallway and into his room. He carelessly drops his backpack and hoodie on the floor, plucking his sopping t-shirt away from his body and listening to Thor's heavy footsteps following after him. A warm zephyr hits his stomach as the dark fabric of his shirt pulls away from his skin, and Loki shivers pleasantly at the sensation. That is, until the warmth turns into icy coldness and _fuck_, does Loki hate summer and the weird weather it brings.

"Hello, what?" Thor attempts to translate as he crowds into the doorway, watching Loki like a curious child. Actually, a lot of things about Thor remind Loki of a kid; a nosy, boisterous, gluttonous, messy child. He would find it endearing if it weren't for the negative repercussions that came with his brother's attitude.

"_Good day, my brother_," Loki easily corrects (did you know that he can speak French almost as fluently as he can English?). He tugs more at his shirt, pausing for a moment before just deciding he really doesn't give a flying fuck (I mean, there isn't a part of him Thor hasn't seen before, and vice versa) and peeling the article off and over his head. He throws it aside to join his jacket and backpack, making his way over to his dresser to dig around for a fresh shirt. And that's when he notices that he doesn't have a faceful of pissy, devoted canine.

Where the hell is Fenrir?

_First my food, now my goddamn dog?_, Loki bitterly muses.

"Loki, you won't believe what happened over lunch today. There was some freshman lurking around our table, tryin' to talk to Steve or something, and he was real scrawny and had this nasally voice almost worse than 'master Lehnsherr's…," Thor begins, his voice full of enthusiasm, and Loki already hates the tale he's telling. He hates it because he knows that last year, had he not been the infamous Thor Skywalker's _baby brother_ and the best friend of that alcoholic psycho Tony Stark (who doubled as Steve's BFF and could kick your ass into next year), he'd be _that_ freshman. The one getting humiliated daily by Steve Rogers and the mighty Elysian Lions. The one at the bottom of the food chain, hated because of his sarcasm and wit and, oh. Let's not forget that he was a _freshman_.

Thor might've always been there to kick some major tail when the upperclassmen dared harass or fuck with his _baby brother_ (ugh), but when the water stopped rippling and Loki was alone, licking wounds that were mental instead of physical, he was nowhere in sight. That's where Tony came in.

And even now, the only reason why _anybody _in Thor's group of friends might appreciate Loki is because of… well, because of how he looks. Because his lithe form is supple and dapper, because he's got curves that are gamine and lean in a way that suggests something feminine. Because his eyes are big and expressive like a girl's, his hair thick and silky like a girl's, his voice smooth and sensual _like a __**girl's**_. To be fair, Steve knows and likes him better than most of Thor's friends because of Tony and because of time, but you get the picture. Loki's looks are what garners him so much attention from people like Fandral and Logan. To make things even _sadder_ (because things are always sad concerning Loki), Loki didn't initially capture _Tony's_ interest with his personality, but with his appearance. Yeah. The first thing Anthony Stark ever said to him was _Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?_.

So instead of listening to Thor's bullshit story, Loki interrupts him with, "Where's Fenrir?"

And then Thor takes a million and a half years to comprehend his _simple _question. He blinks a couple hundred times, brows furrowing, and _holy fucking __**shit**__ on a popsicle stick, Thor_. Loki's getting really aggravated with the fact that he was to speak in what's almost Broken English at a speed of negative two in order for his brother to understand him.

When Thor _finally _answers his question, it's a blithe "I dunno," and he shrugs. He _shrugs. __**Shrugs**_**.**

And, oh no, it's not a heavy, pained shrug, not one of those humbled and thoughtful shrugs, or even a gentle rising of the shoulders that suggests concern for whether Loki blows the fuck up or not. No, no, no. It's a perfectly flippant, nonchalant shrug that clearly says _**I dunno**_ as well as _**I really don't give a fuck**_.

"Excuse me?" Loki replies, disbelief and irritation coloring his voice. He shuts his dresser drawer and deftly moves to grab his hoodie from the floor once more, shrugging the unpleasantly damp, slightly too large article on because he _is not_ going outside wearing a clean shirt. "You've been home for an hour and a half, possibly _longer_, and you have no idea where the fuck my dog is?" he challenges as he presses past Thor to fly down the hallway and into the kitchen.

"Well, I'm not his fucking babysitter," Thor calls after Loki, and by the sound of how close his voice is, he's trailing him.

Loki lets out a frazzled noise as he thrusts onto the patio, a huge gust of rain and wind hitting him in the face as soon as he's outside.

"Well, _boo-fucking-hoo_, Thor!" he retorts irritably, his eyes immediately landing on Fenrir's crouched, waterlogged form in the middle of the yard. The husky could've been sitting there since the rain first started to fall. Wait, scratch _could have_.

Loki runs out into the yard, minutely cringing at the really gross feeling of slippery grass and squishy mud underneath his bare feet with _every. Fucking. Step._ Fenrir jumps up as soon as Loki's close enough, barking in what is most likely happiness (but could also be aggravation because, hey, wouldn't you be thinking _Why the fuck did you leave me outside all day?_ if you were him?) and practically ramming into his master's legs. I'm sorry; I meant to say _and ramming really hard into his master's skinny-as-fuck legs_. Loki slips backwards and falls _hard_ on his ass, his whole backside getting splashed with muck and water in the process.

You know, Loki's pretty sure that there is a deity somewhere in existence harboring a loathing of epic proportions for him. It's very plausible to believe that supernatural beings in the sky sit around thinking of at least one shitty thing to happen to him every day for whatever reason. Loki's guessing it might have to do with the fact that he's an incredibly sarcastic and acerbic human being, or because he'd been blessed (cursed) with a radical, unorthodox mind, or because he denies Tony's affections, or because he's remained jealous of Thor and resentful of his father for years, or for any number of these reasons and the like. Yeah.

"Boo-hoo? Well, I'm _so sorry_ that I'm too exhausted from practice to tend to your beast of a dog!" Thor yells from the semi-safety of the doorway with incredulity dripping from his tone, like he absolutely cannot _believe _Loki's insolence. Which is stupid, because when is Loki _not_ being an audacious prick?

"Yes, _boo-hoo_, Thor," Loki angrily calls back as Fenrir clumsily crawls into his lap, muddying his front with his huge, filthy paws and licking his whole face off, "I'm terribly apologetic if you can't go _across the fucking universe_ that is my house to check on my goddamn dog, because of course, _he_ isn't a living thing!"

Growling exasperatedly, Loki grabs Fenrir's collar, stumbles in what is possibly the most graceful way to stumble to his feet, and drags Fenrir (probably rougher than is really necessary, but hey; when Loki's in pain, _everyone_ deserves to be in pain, right?) onto the patio and out of the pounding, torrential rain. Thor is standing like a giant boulder in the doorway, his face a dreadful mask of agitation and superiority (Loki really hates it when Thor makes _that_ face; the first time he did, he was thirteen and Loki was twelve, and Thor was fussing at his younger brother for wanting to go hang out with him and his friends at the park. Loki cried horribly for hours after, and no amount of comforting Frigga could offer him would cease his terrible weeping. Now, every time Loki sees _that _face, a small part of him wants to cry just as he did when he was twelve).

"Get out of the way, please and thank you," Loki snaps at Thor, gratitude nowhere to be found and venom in great abundance in his tone. Fenrir's growling and twitching at Thor, ears back and tail straight as a rod, and the dog's pissiness only serves to intensify Loki's. Like owner like dog, right? (Okay, that was just a weird thing to say, but you get the picture.)

"That's not very po– _Fuck!_", Thor argues, the last exclamation uttered when Loki unceremoniously shoves him out of the way to get into the kitchen. After he's done it, Loki realizes how incredibly foolish it was to _shove Thor_, because he's _Thor_, and like a wild dog, when you bite him, he bites back. Harder. So, while it's a bad idea to work on Thor's nerves with words, it's definitely a horrible, senseless, borderline suicidal idea to punch/push/kick/slap/etc. the man. Loki turns to face Thor.

Thor looks like he's enduring the most brutal of internal battles, because his eyes are practically burning out of his head as he glares at Loki, and his fists keep clenching and unclenching, the veins in his arms popping up darkly on his skin. He looks like he's considering whether to simply walk away or beat the living shit out of Loki with his bare hands. And Loki is just standing there, _watching _him with the most infuriatingly indifferent expression on his face, Fenrir snarling and clawing the ground at his side. Covered in mud and disheveled as fuck, Loki makes a pretty intimidating sight. Completely and obviously losing his cool, Thor does, too.

And then Thor sighs, averting his glowering eyes to the glass doors and the patio beyond and grumbling, "Alright, Loki."

Loki almost gasps at the gripe, his jaw falling open for a moment before he forces himself to clench it shut. He both criticized and shoved Thor, and he's not being pummeled into the ground? That's something that could only be called a miracle, divine intervention, or an impossibility.

Why isn't Thor beating him up? Why ishe admitting that Loki is _right_? That's the second time in a week he's done that, and it doesn't compute or add up correctly. The law of the universe states that when Loki sasses Thor, Thor skins Loki. That's just the way it is. Something is off, and Loki can feel it more and more the longer he stands in the kitchen, watching his brother restrain himself.

But Loki dares not point the fact out, because he's smarter than that. Instead, he changes the subject ever so slightly with, "Can you hold Fenrir?"

Thor whips his head around to blink at Loki, eyes wide and disbelieving because Loki is basically asking him to commit suicide (and Thor has never had a death wish, no matter how many stupidly risky situations he gets himself into).

"What?" he asks in a shocked, clipped voice, his brows shooting towards his hairline.

Loki frowns a tiny little frown, elaborating, "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm absolutely filthy and I need to change my clothes. I'm not having Fenrir fuck up my carpet with his dirty paws, so I need you to keep him here. Can you please do that?" He shifts his focus between Thor and the floor a few hundred times as he says this, unwilling to look at his brother straight for whatever reason.

Thor watches him warily for a few extraordinarily lengthy moments, the gears in his head turning audibly as he does, and _oh my God_. It was an easy fucking question, Thor, you don't have to think so _long_ and _hard_ about it.

"I'll be thirty seconds, I promise," Loki adds earnestly, partially out of uncharacteristic impatience, and it occurs to him that it's been a really long time since he last swore something to Thor. Hell, it's been _years_ since he's made his brother a promise, and that last time, it was a promise that they'd never be the same again, that they'd be brothers only in blood; not in spirit.

The significance of that might not be lost on Thor, because he starts moving forward, hesitantly agreeing with a slow, "Okay…"

The closer Thor gets, the more agitated Fenrir becomes, and by the time Thor is an arm's length away from him, the husky is snarling like crazy, twisting violently in Loki's grip and pounding at the ground with his paws. It still doesn't make sense why Fenrir starts to instantly PMS in Thor's presence, even though defensiveness and a tendency to be territorial are basic parts of the dog's personality.

"Calm down, Fenrir!" Loki barks out of unadulterated frustration, quickly letting go of the husky's collar only to tightly grip the scruff of his neck just as rapidly. It's a tactic he's been using since Fenrir was a puppy, and what do you know? As soon as his scruff is seized, Fenrir goes still and submissive, coolly sitting back on his haunches. Thor gives Loki an apprehensive look anyways, his hand hovering uncertainly above Fenrir's neck, and it's almost funny to see a man as pompous and daredevil as Thor scared of a goddamn husky.

Loki responds to Thor's expression with saddened eyes, evenly instructing, "Just take hold of his scruff like I'm doing. He'll calm down if you do that." He watches as Thor carefully follows his instructions, smiling a bit in spite of himself when his brother takes Fenrir's collar in his other hand just in case. As soon as Fenrir is securely in Thor's grip, Loki swiftly moves to the kitchen door, preparing to dash down the hallway.

"Don't let go! He'll kill you!" Loki calls back as an afterthought, advancing down the hallway in long strides (thank God for awesome, Twizzler legs). He hears Thor's answering laugh just as he enters his room, and he bites his lip to deter the stupid chuckle fighting to escape him.

What the hell is up with Thor? It's not normal for him to be so… what's the word? Restrained? No. Respectful? Too generous. The most accurate thing to say would be that he's avoidant of any animosity between himself and Loki, which is really fucking unusual. When they were teenagers, it seemed like he lived for the rivalry they harbored for one another. Last year, when they didn't live together, while he didn't actively seek out enmity with Loki, Thor wouldn't hesitate to start something nasty between them had the opportunity presented itself. And what about Loki?

Mood swings are normal for him; that's a given, considering his bipolar disorder. But Loki feels like his brother's constant presence in his home has them backtracking to their adolescence, when they were practically drowning in their own hormones and sparks would fly if they _looked_ at one another wrong. Forgiveness would come just as easily until a reason to hate came crashing through the city that was Thor and Loki, destroying buildings and killing innocents in its wake.

Loki decides not to think about it now (again, something completely out-of-character; usually Loki's thinking himself straight to an ulcer), focusing instead on stripping his clothes off and replacing them with something clean and dry and warm and _heavenly_. He ends up with a Ziggy Stardust t-shirt (Which is also a little too big for him since Loki is one of those people with a weird, in-between shirt size; everything is either too baggy and long or too short and tight for him, thanks to Loki's petite-yet-lanky frame. But anyways, the shirt's too large and it hangs off of one pale shoulder; he doesn't wear it out in public, and it seems like almost everything he wears is music-related today, right?) and a pair of dark blue gym shorts. As soon as he's dressed, he speeds back to the kitchen, pulling his dark hair into a sloppy ponytail on the way.

When Loki staggers into the kitchen, he almost has to run back into the living room to hide the cry of laughter rising in his throat because _holy shit_, Thor is on his back in the middle of the mud-covered floor, one tense arm shielding his face and the other pressed against Fenrir's neck, just barely holding the dog back. The husky is _standing on top_ of Thor, barking and growling and yapping and generally being a pissed puppy at the man's protective forearm. And the sight is absolutely fucking _hilarious _(_huh-__**larry**__-uss_), because Thor is cowering in the face of this dog he could so easily just throw off of him, and it's happening in the middle of _Loki's_ kitchen, and it's perfect_perfect__**perfect**_.

So instead of being a polite, wonderful human being, Loki throws his head and laughs outright, crossing his arms over his chest in a weird, victorious sort of way. Thor jumps upon hearing the cackle, and when the man peeks over his arm to pout _so flawlessly childlike_ and _wounded _at his brother, Loki's laughter only intensifies. It's a dick thing to do, but Loki has been laughed at and humiliated far too many times in his life by Thor to give a fuck now. Screw his conscience. This is fucking awesome, this _feeling big_ sort of thing.

"Fuck you, Loki!" Thor growls, the end of the outcry quickly turning into what could only be called a whine when Fenrir snarls loudly at him, snapping his jaws. Loki's relentless cackling grows hysterical in nature at that, and he's wrapping his arms around his stomach and leaning completely against the doorway, whooping and wheezing with laughter. The man's snickering sounds ridiculous and ugly, like a crying baby but also an elephant as well as a hyena, but it feels so incredibly _good_. He hasn't laughed like this since that time when he and Tony got piss-drunk and sung the most amazing (and very melodious, by the way) karaoke version of _I Will Always Love You_ at Steve's homecoming party last year.

And then Thor is practically pleading, "Loki, please. Do you _want_ me to die?"

Loki ceases his cackling for a moment to voice a shaky, "Do you want to know the real answer to that?"

Thor glares daggers at him. Loki bursts into laughter again, feeling tears springing to his eyes at the sheer humor and irony and _perfection _of it all.

"_Loki, __**help**__ me_," Thor begs, a note of hurt in his voice. That's what subdues Loki; it's the pain in Thor's tone that makes him realize that _okay_, he needs to stop. Thor might've never even considered pausing to help his brother, but you have to remember something: Loki _isn't _Thor.

Chuckling quietly and wiping a stray tear from his eye, Loki strolls over to where Fenrir and Thor are sprawled on the floor. With a smile that refuses to fade, he easily slips his arms under Fenrir's stomach and heaves the husky into his arms, holding his heavy frame against his chest. Fenrir almost instantly calms down, and water seeps from the dog's coat into Loki's shirt, but shit. Loki's too happy to be bothered by that anymore. He glances down at Thor, eyes twinkling with mischief. Thor scowls.

"You're horrible, you know that?" Thor growls, pushing himself up to rest on his elbows. The anger in his voice doesn't reach his eyes, though, and Loki thinks he can see a hint of amusement within that clear blue. Maybe. Definitely not (but probably so).

Loki grins, a real genuine _smile_, and replies without a hint of malice, "Payback is sweet, brother." Not waiting for Thor to answer, he shifts Fenrir into a more bearable position in his arms and starts for the door, calling over his shoulder, "Come on. I can't bathe him by myself." (Even though he _can _bathe him on his own, and has been doing it for a whole year. He's just savoring this newfound dominance over Thor for as long as he can.)

Loki only knows Thor has followed him after he's down the hall and turning into the bathroom, with Thor's booming voice asking, "Where'd you get your conscience, huh? I'm pretty sure you were gypped." And you know, it feels _really good_ to have this kind of conversation with Thor, to be this easy and sarcastic without a shot of bitchiness or poison or wrath, despite the fact that Loki knows it won't last for very long, nor will he admit it out loud (because that's not how he rolls; straightforward just isn't very _Loki_, is it?).

"I bought it at K-Mart for half-off, and you know I can't pass up a good sale," Loki easily replies, carefully bending over to set Fenrir on the tile floor and making sure to grab the dog's collar soon after, just so he doesn't start mauling the shit out of Thor.

Sure enough, Fenrir begins barking and growling and fighting against Loki's grip to get to the larger of the two-leggeds, and Loki pinches the husky's scruff punitively, instructing Thor to, "Close the door, please." It's now when Loki realizes that Fenrir stinks horribly, the odor of wet dog filling his nostrils and summoning a small headache.

Thor lets out an exuberant laugh at Loki's joke (Oh shit, where did that warm, fuzzy feeling come from, Loki? Your heart, you say? That thing that's cold and wretched and broken? _Get out_.), doing as he's told and kicking the door shut a bit too hard.

"I think you could get that checked out, my brother," the blond adds, remaining a cautious distance away from Fenrir, and holy crap, if you only knew what that _my brother_ at the end of Thor's statement does to Loki.

Instead of saying something in reply (because Loki's pretty sure whatever happens to come out of his mouth will end up being stupid and gooey as fuck, and that is _definitely not_ how he rolls _at all_), Loki firmly orders Fenrir, "Stay put. No biting or attacking," and moves to kneel by the bathtub. He quietly sighs in relief when Fenrir follows his directions, only growling softly at Thor.

"Can you get the dog shampoo and a few towels?" Loki requests as he bends over the edge of the bathtub to switch on the faucet, making sure the water is nice and warm before he clogs the tub. Fenrir is milling around behind him, occasionally swiping his sopping, muddy tail against his back.

Loki listens as Thor pokes around the shelf full of hair/skin/beauty products. When his brother makes a soft, discontented grunting noise, he glances over his shoulder and asks, "What?"

Thor turns to him, prudently dangling a stylishly curvy bottle of black polish (like, the pretty black that shines and sparkles, the kind you only see in magazines and on movie stars) between his thumb and his index (like if he actually holds it correctly he'll spontaneously grow a vagina and a pair of breasts), questioning in his best _Why the fuck are we related? _voice, "Nail polish?"

Loki grins impishly and holds the back of his hand up for Thor to see, wiggling his fingers to draw attention to the way the fluorescent light of the bathroom hits his perfectly noir nails. "You haven't noticed?" he jests, watching as Thor's bewildered expression turns surprised.

"Uhm, _no_," Thor replies, replacing the black bottle on the shelf and grabbing two more. He holds them in the same overly-cautious fashion and remarks, "I didn't know you were so fond of…" he pauses to read the bottles, "… _peacock blue_ and _danger yellow_."

Rather than getting all flustered and embarrassed about a habit he's extremely comfortable with (and proudly so), Loki turns back to the tub and places his hand on the bottom, checking the depth of the water. "They're fabulous colors, aren't they?" he counters, a laugh apparent in his voice.

Thor is silent for a few seconds before he groans, audibly dropping the nail polish back on the shelf with a grumbled, "Yeah, yeah. What's the difference between the dog shampoo and your shampoo?"

"The dog shampoo is green and very obviously has a German Shepherd washing its hair on the bottle," Loki sighs at Thor's thick-headedness, killing the faucet and brushing a stray lock of hair out of his face as he adds, "Mine is yellow and smells like lemon." (That should be easy enough to decipher, am I right?)

"Well, that's easy," Thor concedes, and Loki can't help but laugh at the lameness of the statement. A few moments later and the bathtub has about four inches of water in it, two old towels and a bottle of doggy shampoo sit on the toilet, and Loki and Thor are wrestling Fenrir into the tub. Wrestling because Fenrir goes fucking crazy as soon as Thor decides to be a dumbass and touch him.

"Shit, _Thor!_" Loki curses as he grabs at Fenrir's hind legs and lifts him the rest of the way into the tub, bringing his arm up to wipe his water-spattered face with the inside of his forearm.

Thor responds to the glare Loki throws his way with this horribly innocent face, whining, "It's not my fault your dog hates me! I didn't do anything to him!" As he says this, Fenrir is growling over the edge of the tub at him, teeth bared and ears just slightly turned back. It's almost comical.

Loki laughs wryly at the complaint, reaching over to grab the bottle of dog shampoo on the toilet. "The day you moved in, you stepped on his tail and almost fell on him," he points out as he pops the cap of the bottle and sets it on the floor, "I'd be pretty pissed with you if I were him."

Thor watches indignantly from where he sits cross-legged on the tile (which is kind of a funny sight, considering how bulky he is and the closeness of the bathroom) as Loki methodically starts to splash water on Fenrir's already wet coat.

"I didn't have to step on your tail and trip over you, and that doesn't stop you," he replies, and the comment hits Loki _so fucking hard_, like a bullet in the head. Or the heart. Or both.

The way Thor said it. Just so conversational and blunt and _honest_, it was, like he was talking about the shade of Loki's hair or something. There wasn't any inflection or underlying implications in the statement, and that's what sucked so much about it. It wasn't a deep thing to say, really. It wasn't intended to make a point, and Thor most likely didn't intend to practically… okay, fuck _practically_. He didn't mean to break Loki's heart with the remark, but he did. And Loki suddenly really hates him for it. Hates him because Thor is right to an extent; Loki gets pissed with him at the drop of the hat and for completely insane, irrational reasons. It's true.

But it's also true that Thor broke his body in a way that could be fixed, and his mind in a way that couldn't. It's also true that Loki has the potential to abhor Thor for this very reason. It's _also_ true that Thor's actions are what made him so volatile and unstable; Loki's always been emotional, but it wasn't until the accident that he could be considered bipolar.

Loki's hand goes still against Fenrir's stomach, and he stares blankly at the wet fur, the light heaviness of Thor's words weighing on him and tugging his heart in two different directions. He can feel awful hot tears pooling in his eyes, and he bites down _hard_ on his lip so that he doesn't scream or sob or say something terrible or say something nice.

"Loki?" Thor asks, his voice actually pretty normal and even, just a hint of worry in it. He says it like he didn't expect Loki's mostly invisible reaction to his words, and he can't even see the wetness in his brother's eyes. Of course.

Loki looks up to meet Thor's gaze, not trying to hide the fact that he's basically about to bawl his eyes out. The only thing that stops him from doing just that is the look Thor gets on his face as soon as he sees the pain in his eyes. It's this expression that simultaneously says _Oh shit_, _What's going on?_, and _I'm breaking up inside_.

"Loki…" Thor starts to say, reaching out towards his brother, but Loki pushes his hand away, turning back to Fenrir and forcing himself to calm down (screw this _feeling_ shit).

"No," Loki quickly deflects, grabbing the bottle of shampoo and squeezing a generous glob of it into his hand, "Forget it. Don't mind me." He feels like shit saying it, because really? All he's ever _wanted_ was for Thor to mind him. But, then again, all Loki ever does is lie, lie, _lie_ to everyone but Tony and Frigga, now. Why not stay consistent and keep it the fuck up? (Even though it ruins him.)

"But, Loki…" Thor starts to say, setting his jaw and scooting closer on the floor. He stops when Loki whips around to glare at him with hard, burning emerald eyes.

"Shut up, Thor!" he yells, shoving his hand into Fenrir's fur without looking, his eyes trained on his brother, "Just shut the fuck up! You don't _have_ to care about me when I'm so bipolar and stupid, okay?"

Didn't expect that, did you? (Admit it. I got you good.)

It's just that Loki has stopped taking his emotions so seriously, figuring that most of the extreme things he feels are simply offshoots of his bipolar disorder (even though that's completely ridiculous). Hell, he's pretty sure that his weird feelings for Tony and the depression that winds him whenever Thor is near are merely results of the chemical imbalance in his brain; not to say he doesn't love Tony or that Thor doesn't affect him, because _yes_. Loki cares a whole fucking lot about Tony, and Thor actually does upset him. It's just those moments when he feels like his skin is going to burn off if he can't get a taste of his best friend, or like he's going to fall through the earth into Hades because Thor is _looking_ at him that he thinks he's just plain _crazy_. Loki doesn't understand why Tony regards his emotions with so much magnitude (even though that's _obvious_; haven't you noticed that Tony's practically head over heels for him?), and he's convinced that Thor only forces himself to care at this point. What's the point of being genuine anymore?

"What if I _want _to care, though?" Thor bites back, raising his voice. He's obviously cross, now, but it's different from the way he's usually pissed; normally Thor gets offended on his own behalf. This time, it's like he's hurt on Loki's, and why is everything so _weird_ and _different_ and _upside down_ between them now?

Loki lets out a whine; a pitiful, broken, thirteen year-old whine, a couple of tears slipping down his cheeks. He can't help it; he just feels too confused, too guilty and superior and weak and everything _wrong_. Fenrir is butting his muzzle against his forehead like he does whenever Loki gets upset, but the comfort doesn't register.

"I don't hate you, Loki, and I don't exist to make your life miserable. Stop acting like it, please, because it fucking _hurts_ knowing you think so lowly of me," Thor huffs solemnly, and he's leaning over into Loki's space, trying to meet his eyes, and _fuck_, it's too much. Loki lets out a sob because he was so blind and daft, shakes with his sadness, cries harder.

"Stop crying!" Thor exclaims, his voice breaking feebly at the end of the demand, "Stop fucking _crying_, Loki! _Stop it!_"And Loki knows exactly why Thor is pleading with him to cease his weeping.

It's because ever since they were children, as soon as the first tear fell from Loki's eyes, Thor broke down. That was all it took. If Loki was screaming or angry or defiant, the world was still intact and Thor could still function. But if Loki was crying? Shit, it was like someone had flipped the _off_ switch on Thor, like all his nuts and bolts had come unscrewed and the ability to stay calm been obliterated. Even when their relationship totally went to shit, Thor couldn't handle Loki's tears. He almost cried himself the day they woke up in the hospital, when he found his brother weeping to himself, softly gasping about how _the pain is too much_.

Not thinking, Loki swiftly moves to wrap his arms around Thor's neck, clinging tightly to his huge, foolish brother (slapping that huge chunk of shampoo onto his back, too, remember?) and biting his lip against more tears. It doesn't take long for Thor to hug him back, practically crushing his smaller frame, and it's an awkward, needy, stupid hug that Loki needs more than anything because he needs to feel wanted, and Thor needs more than anything because he needs Loki to _stop crying_.

It doesn't fix everything. But it feels really good. Really good.

Five minutes later, Loki and Thor are scrubbing smelly canine shampoo into Fenrir's fur, Loki working on the dog's front end and Thor on the back. They don't talk.

* * *

**More A/N: This was practically a train wreck. I'm sorry. But at least there be progress with Loki and Thor, right? Uhm, it's gotten to the point where I'm pretty much accepting of the fact that every single one of these will turn into a jump-rope story that goes up and down and up and down; that's the way life actually plays out, right? (Look at me shamelessly defending myself, **_**gah**_**.)**

**I'd really like to thank the people who have given me such wonderful feedback. I'm living on you guys; you have all my kisses and love. Also, don't be afraid to point out any errors; I would appreciate it profusely if you did.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, loves. :]**

**- Gabi.**


	7. Telephone

**Title:** Telephone.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~3000  
**Characters:** Loki, Frigga, Tony Stark; light Tony/Loki.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Some angst-age.  
**Summary:** His mother is an angel. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So, this is something I was somewhat excited to do. It's written differently from the rest of the verse because I wanted it to appear mostly conversational, so you guys could imagine most of the inflection and emotion behind the words. I swear this was _not_ an attempt to be cheap or finish faster. Also, we do need some Frigga in his verse about now, amirite?

* * *

_**Monday, August 29**__**th **__**at 10:23 PM. **_

"Hello?"

(_Oh, good. She answered._)

"Mother?"

(_He balances his book in his lap as he reaches forward to grab the remote control from the coffee table, turning the TV volume down._)

"Oh, darling! I'm so sorry I couldn't get to the phone earlier; Daddy and I took a day off."

(_He smiles; everything is better as soon as Mother starts talking._)

"That's okay, Mother."

"Have you been taking your medicine?"

(_Loki winces a bit. He doesn't lie. He never lies to Mother._)

"No, not really."

(_Cue nervous laugh._)

"Why not, love?" (_a rustle_) "You know it would make life easier."

"Yes, but I don't much enjoy the idea of having my emotions suppressed, no matter how ridiculous or difficult they may be."

(_Loki stares at the television without seeing it. He can hear Thor and Sif's laughter through the wall._)

"I see. That's very like you."

(_He laughs quietly_.)

"Well, how are you, Loki? Have things gotten better in that oh-so horrible psychology class?"

"I suppose. I've gotten used to it by now, and sociology helps."

(_Loki smiles softly when Frigga laughs_.)

"Oh, that must be fun. I remember how wonderful my sociology class was when I was in college…"

"You've told me about it."

"Have I? Well, I guess that's a very _me_ thing to do."

(_He laughs again_.)

"Of course, Mother."

"How's Thor? And Anthony?"

(_Loki leans back against the sofa, letting his eyes travel up to the ceiling_.)

"_Tony_."

(_He takes pride in the fact that he can get under Tony's skin with his given name; only he and his father ever call him that._)

"I'm sorry. Tony. How is he?"

"He's wonderful. Actually trying to pass, now."

(_Frigga laughs_.)

"Well, he must be scared after what happened last year. That _was _rather frightening. And it would be such a shame if he failed; he's so intelligent."

(_Loki nods before he realizes Frigga can't see him._)

"True."

"Is he still…?" (_She pauses, trying to find the right words_.)

"Still addicted?"

(_Frigga makes a remorseful noise, like she regrets breaching the subject. She shouldn't, though. She, Loki, and Tony have talked about this a lot before. Loki briefly worries the inside of his lip_.)

"He's shaken the Adderall, but he's still drinking. Not as much, though."

(_Frigga seems to sigh._)

"Good. Very good."

"You're welcome."

(_They both laugh for a few moments._)

"And what about Thor? How is he?"

(_Loki averts his eyes to the television again. A man is drowning in a pool. Must be Cold Case._)

"Healthy."

"Oh, Loki."

(_He chuckles._)

"He's fine, Mother, really. And happy and active and hungry and loud and rude–"

"Loki."

(_He pauses._)

"I'm sorry. I'm being rather impolite, aren't I?"

"Just a bit, darling. But, go on. Is he bothering you, still?"

(_Loki sighs_.)

"Yeah. But it doesn't matter."

"Loki, don't do that to your mother. It _does_ matter, lovely. You can talk to mama."

(_She's an angel._)

"Well… it's just that." (_He sighs again, lowers his voice involuntarily._) "He's so disrespectful, even though this is _my_ house, and. I don't know; he just makes me so _angry_. He's still having his friends over almost every day, and I don't understand _how_ they're passing by getting drunk and partying every night–"

"Wait. First of all, you don't worry about Thor passing. That's his choice whether to fail or not."

(_Loki smiles wryly_.)

"So you care more about Tony passing than Thor?"

(_Frigga chuckles airily, quickly saying_.)

"I didn't say that. But Thor is my son and I trust he can make the right choices for himself, just like I trust you. Tony's different."

"How?"

"He's… he's like a puppy you brought home to me. Remember Mercury?"

(_Loki can't help but laugh at the memory_.)

"Mother, Tony isn't a Labrador pup I dragged home when I was six!"

"Just listen!" (_She laughs._) "I'm not saying Tony is a dog. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you brought him home, absolutely in love with him, and he was alone. He was a stray, and he needed to be taken care of. He still does, even when he's gotten so much better. That's why I'm concerned about whether he passes or not, because, unlike you and Thor, he doesn't have that sense of direction to wherever he wants to go. He's just following you, or his father, or nobody. That's why."

(_Loki considers his mother's words for a long moment, watching the colors of the TV blur and dance in front of his eyes._)

"Now go on about Thor."

"He's never concerned with anyone but himself. And his friends are dreadful. I've never felt more trapped in my own house, Mother." (_He stops himself._) "Well, that's not entirely true, but you understand, right?"

(_Frigga makes a noise of acknowledgment._)

"And you haven't talked to him about it?"

(_Loki frowns._)

"Well, no. What difference would it make?"

"A hell of a difference, Loki! Sometimes you need to just speak to him–"

"Words don't matter to Thor, Mother! I'd do better punching him in the face."

"Loki…"

"But, wait." (_He cuts her off._) "It seems like he gets how I feel."

"What do you mean?"

"Well… yesterday he told me he, quote, _doesn't exist to make my life miserable_."

"Is that what you thought?"

(_Loki pauses. Hearing his mother say that makes him realize how irrational his thought process might have been._)

"Yes."

"But he told you he didn't. He doesn't _want_ to hurt your feelings, love. You know Thor."

"Yeah, I know him."

(_It's said with a hint of malice. There is a long pause._)

"Loki, can you promise me something?"

"Of course, Mother."

"Give him a chance. Just let him settle down, and be honest with him."

(_Loki can't help the exasperated sigh he releases._)

"I've given him so many chances, though. I think I'm running out."

"Please, Loki. You never know how far patience can get you."

(_There's a slight inflection in her tone. Loki recognizes it._)

"Don't tell me that Father and you had him move in on purpose."

(_Frigga coughs. She doesn't say anything for a few seconds._)

"I'm not going to lie to you and say we didn't. But Thor _wanted_ to be with you, Loki."

"Why?"

(_Loki hates his voice for being so hard and urgent._)

"Because he wanted his brother back."

(_Loki stares at the floor, feeling his eyes tighten and water._)

"Loki, it's the truth."

"Well, forgive me if I have a hard time believing it after what he did to me."

"It was an _accident_, love. How many times do I have to tell you? And you're forgiven, because I do understand how you feel. Do you remember the story I told you about Aunt Volla and I?"

(_Loki scrubs at his eye with the palm of his hand._)

"Yes, Mother."

"Things got better between us, didn't they? And, look. We're practically best friends now, just like we used to be."

"But Thor and I aren't you and Aunt Volla."

(_Frigga goes silent for a moment._)

"I know, Loki. I know. But please. If Thor can forgive you for your feelings, you can forgive him for what he's done."

(_Loki really wants to scream. But he doesn't, because he knows his mother is right, in a way._)

"I'll try, Mother."

"No. There is no _trying_ with you, my love. You _do_; you don't try."

(_He smiles sadly, somewhat reassured._)

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now besides all that, how _is _Thor?"

"He's… happy. He's very happy."

(_Frigga makes a pleased noise._)

"Good. Is he making his classes?"

"Yes, no thanks to myself." (_Frigga laughs quietly._) "But you know they don't matter to him. All he cares about is football."

"Loki, don't be so harsh."

"But, it's true, Mother! That's the only reason why he's in college; he said so himself."

(_Frigga hum/sighs in grudging agreement._)

"And how is he doing in that department?"

"I wouldn't know. You know how much I _adore_ useless sports."

(_They both laugh at the sarcastic comment._)

"Oh, Loki. Perhaps you should try out for track in the spring. You've got the body for it."

"Mother, please."

(_Loki chuckles, looking down into his lap._)

"What time is it? Oh, damn."

"What?"

"I promised Daddy I'd be off the phone in ten minutes, and I've spent twenty on it."

(_Loki laughs again._)

"That's quite alright, Mother. I'm sure Father wouldn't mind too terribly."

"Of course. You'll be okay, my love?"

"I'm twenty years-old."

"That doesn't mean anything, darling."

(_Loki loves how perceptive Mother is._)

"I'll be fine. I swear. And I'll… I'll give Thor a chance."

(_Frigga hums, satisfied._)

"Thank you. Goodnight, my chameleon."

"Goodnight, Mother. I love you."

"And I love you."

(_Loki smiles and closes his eyes._ _**End of call.**_)

* * *

_**Wednesday, September 7**__**th **__**at 12:45 PM.**_

"Uhm, hello?"

"Loki? Are you alright?"

(_Loki shuts the car door, dumps his backpack on the passenger seat and coughs._)

"I'm fine, Mother. Sorry. How are you?"

"Good, good. But you're coughing. Are you sick?"

(_Loki coughs again, keys his Elantra into drive and glances at the dashboard clock. 12:46._)

"It's just a cold."

"Oh, dear. Do you have any cough syrup, or should I drop some off?"

"I have Tylenol, Mother. I'll be fine."

"But you need cough syrup."

(_Loki makes a small, irritated noise, turns the air up._)

"Mother."

"No, no, no, Loki. You're not arguing with me about this one. I'll not have you catching pneumonia at the beginning of September."

(_Loki sighs_.)

"Mother, really. Now's not a very good time. I have about fifteen minutes to get to my next class."

"Oh, sorry, love! Is it your last for the day?"

"Yes, and then I have to go to work."

"Aww, he's growing up so fast on me."

(_Loki sighs again, but there's a touch of fondness there this time_.)

"When does your shift end?"

"Eight."

"I'll swing by sometime after that to drop off some medicine and your allowance, okay? Make sure Thor isn't tearing up your house when I get there, because you know what I'll do to him."

(_He chuckles._)

"In that case, I'll _beg_ him to fuck everything up."

(_Frigga laughs loudly._)

"Loki! Don't be so bad!"

"Sorry, sorry." (_He glances at the clock again. 12:48._) "Look, I have to go."

"Alright, love. I'll see you later."

"Thank you. Bye."

(_**End of call.**_)

* * *

_**Thursday, September 15**__**th **__**at 2:34 PM.**_

"Mother! Hi!"

"Why, salutations! You sound happy."

"I–" (_Loki laughs, squirms to the other side of the sofa._) "I am. I am."

(_Frigga pauses._)

"What's going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing, I-I-I'm fine."

(_Loki kicks at Tony when he tries to crawl over. His foot lands on the man's chest._)

"Are you sure? I know my son well enough to guess you're better than just _fine_." (_She laughs lovingly._) "You're giggly, and that means you're very happy, right?"

"_Mother_."

"Come on, love. What's happened?"

"Nothing's happened. Not really– _Hey!_"

"… Loki?"

"Hey, Mrs. F."

(_Frigga laughs exuberantly._)

"Well, _hello_, Tony. I should've guessed it was you."

(_Loki yells at Tony to give him his cellphone back. There are sounds of a struggle._)

"Am I that obvious?"

(_Tony grins._)

"Just a bit. Take it as a compliment, dearie. Not many people besides you can have my Loki so cheerful."

"Fuck _yes_!"

(_Tony punches the air. Loki snatches his phone back._)

"Mother, I'm sorry…"

(_Frigga chuckles warmly._)

"Loki, you should never apologize to me for something like that. I love to hear from Tony, too."

(_Loki shoots Tony a nasty look. Tony pouts innocently._)

"I don't understand why. He's so horrible."

"Don't be nasty, Loki."

"I'm not being nasty! I'm telling the truth!" (_Loki laughs, watches Tony's face morph into an expression of mock-hurt. Frigga laughs as well._)

"I think he's lovely."

"So I've heard."

(_Tony clambers over Loki's legs and rests his head in his lap. Loki swats at his head and Frigga hums._)

"How's school treating you?"

"Busily. The only reason why I'm hanging out with this _buffoon _you love so much is because it's Thursday and I have nothing else to do."

(_Tony exclaims his disagreement. Loki and Frigga chuckle in unison._)

"Oh, Loki. Always so critical of the ones you love most."

(_Loki hums a laugh._)

"That's me."

"Of course."

"What about you, Mother? It's been ages since I've actually heard about what you're doing."

(_Tony walks his fingers up Loki's chest. Loki ignores him._)

"Oh, I'm splendid, darling. I've been sleeping better, lately."

(_Loki smiles._)

"That's great."

"My reading circle started a new book. Maybe you've heard of it?"

"Yeah?"

(_Tony runs his fingers back down Loki's chest, smiling. Loki continues to ignore him._)

"It's called…" (_She pauses, there is some rustling._) "_The Secret Life of Bees_."

(_Loki laughs almost disbelievingly._)

"You've never heard of that one before?"

"Don't laugh at me, silly boy!" (_Frigga chuckles._) "Hestia told me it was a very good read, so I figured that either it was well-known, that you'd read it, or both."

"Well, it is brilliant. You'd enjoy it."

"Will I cry?"

(_Loki chuckles. Tony slips his fingertips beneath the hem of his tank top._)

"Not like you did that time you read _Beloved_, but probably so."

(_Frigga snorts._)

"That was a _heartbreaking _book, Loki. You cried as well."

"I wasn't saying I didn–"

(_Loki shrieks when Tony tickles his stomach, drops his phone. Tony laughs loudly and pins Loki to the couch, tickles him relentlessly._)

"Loki?"

(_Loki cackles crazily, begs Tony to stop and let him go. Tony defiantly replies with a 'no'._)

"Loki? What's going on?"

(_Tony cranes his neck, blows against Loki's stomach. Loki screams Tony's name and grabs at his wrists. Frigga raises her voice._)

"Tony, you let my son go! He's very delicate!"

(_Frigga laughs towards the end of the statement. Tony catches Loki's wrists in one hand and pins them to the armrest. He picks up Loki's phone with the other._)

"What was that, Mrs. F?"

"I said 'let my son go'. You know how dainty he is."

(_Tony and Frigga laugh. Tony grins down at Loki. Loki watches him insolently._)

"Oh, I'll be _real_ careful, Mrs. F. He'll be fine."

(_Tony leans down, presses a playful kiss to Loki's lips. Loki bites Tony's lips. Tony drops the phone with a gasp and Loki frees a hand to reclaim his cell._)

"Mother, what did I tell you? He's just awful."

(_Frigga chuckles._)

"He's Tony."

(_Tony glares at Loki. Loki winks and returns his mother's chuckle._)

"Right."

"If you need to, I'll let you off the phone for awhile. You two sound occupied."

(_Loki blushes. Frigga laughs._)

"Mother, that's horrible!"

"Oh, stop. You've said worse things."

"But you're my _mother_!"

(_Frigga hums._)

"That's right, dearie. And Mother loves you enough to let you have fun."

(_Loki closes his eyes, smiles tightly._)

"This isn't fun; this is sexual harassment."

(_Tony lets out a loud cackle._)

"It's not harassment if you like it. Then it's just sex."

"_Mother!_"

(_Frigga giggles._)

"All right, all right. I'll leave you alone now."

"Thanks for that."

"Call me when you two are engaged."

(_Loki groans loudly. Tony grins a shit-eating grin._)

"_**Mom.**_"

(_Frigga laughs cheerily._)

"Goodbye, chameleon. Mother loves you."

"Yeah, I love you, too."

(_Tony loudly declares his love for Frigga. Frigga laughs._)

"I love Tony, too."

(_Loki relays this information to Tony. Tony blows a kiss in the general direction of the phone._)

"He sends kisses your way."

"Ditto."

(_Loki chuckles._)

"Bye, Mother."

(_**End of call.**_)

* * *

_**Saturday, September 17**__**th **__**at 12:18 AM.**_

"Hello…?"

(_Loki sniffs._)

"Hi, Mom."

"What's wrong, dearie?"

(_Loki laughs bitterly._)

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"I can hear it in your voice, love. I'm not deaf."

(_Loki sighs and looks at Fenrir lying beside him. He feels dizzy._)

"Loki."

"I'm sorry… it's too late for me to be calling…"

"No, no! It's never too late to call me. You know you don't have to apologize for that."

"Did I wake you?"

(_Frigga pauses._)

"Yes, but I was only dozing. It doesn't matter."

"But, Mother…"

"Loki, don't be daft. You obviously needed to talk to me. What's wrong?"

(_Loki stays silent for a long while. He runs a hand through Fenrir's fur. Fenrir lies still._)

"_Loki._ I'm not putting up with your bullshit tonight. Just talk."

(_Loki pauses._)

"Can _you_ just talk to _me_?"

(_Frigga pauses._)

"About what?"

"I don't know… Nonsense."

"Tell me what happened first."

(_Loki sighs heavily._)

"To make a long story short, Thor took me to a party and set me up with his friend, I almost got raped, Tony was drunk and rude, Thor and Steve humiliated these helpless sophomores, and I'm horribly depressed now."

(_Frigga is silent for a few moments._)

"Where's your brother?"

(_Loki makes a face, taken aback._)

"What?"

"Where's Thor?" (_Her voice is hard._)

"He's still at the party."

(_Frigga makes an exasperated noise halfway between a sigh and a scoff._)

"What, Mother?"

"Have you been doing what I told you to?"

"Yes. And look where it's gotten me."

(_Loki makes a frustrated noise, snatches his hand away from Fenrir to run viciously through his hair._)

"I'll talk to him. The next time I call and he's home, I'll talk to him."

"You don't have to, Mother."

"But I do! I'll not stand by while you get hurt repeatedly by him, especially knowing that I can do something about it."

(_Loki is silent. He really loves Mother._)

"Now, this nonsense…"

"No, it's okay." (_He cuts her off._) "I think I'll just… go to bed."

(_Frigga pauses._)

"Are you sure, love?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, then. Sleep well, my chameleon. I love you."

(_Loki smiles a bit._)

"I love you, too. Goodnight."

(_Frigga kisses Loki through the phone. __**End of call.**_)

* * *

**More A/N: Since people have been asking about it, **_**yes**_**: Loki and Thor's family is very financially well-off, so to speak. I don't want to say "rich"; it's more like very upper-middle class. When Frigga mentioned the allowance thing, I wanted to make it clear that she does lend money to both Loki and Thor.**

**The party mentioned in the last scene will have its own story. That's the one coming up. **

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, my loves! Thank you for the feedback.**

**- Gabi.**


	8. Like Toothpaste

**Title:** Like Toothpaste  
**Rating:** PG-15 for language and extremely high temperatures.  
**Word Count:** ~18,780.  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Fandral, Sif, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, a whole plethora of Marvel characters; weird, complicated Tony/Loki all around.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Lots of angst and pissiness and jump-roping, from all of the characters.  
**Summary:** Loki kind of wishes he could die right about now. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** This took the longest time simply because it turned out to be horribly lengthy without me meaning to make it that way. I'm sorry you guys have had to wait, because this is just _so loooooong_. And some of the details I had worked out before changed as I was writing, so the ending of _Telephone_ has been altered accordingly. Before you read, I just want to warn you that my writing gets worse as this goes on. There are a shitload of Marvel characters and relationships mentioned, like I said, and if you aren't familiar with them, remember that Wikipedia is your friend (it sure was mine while writing this monster).

* * *

So, I'm guessing you want to know how he ended up like this, right? Goosebump cold with an even colder friend and borderline murderously glaring as Thor Skywalker and Steve Motherfucking Rogers _humiliate_ Anna Marie Darkhölme and her supposed boyfriend Remy LeBeau (who is known to be visually impaired). You do?

It's an interesting story.

He gets home around eight-fifteen to find Thor, Sif, and Fandral downright _booking it_ to get out the door. Normally, that kind of thing would have Loki doing somersaults in his happiness, and can you blame him? His blockhead brother and his dreadful friends are _going out_ instead of coming in for once. That's a wonderful phenomenon, is it not?

The thing that stops him from thinking so is the expressions they carry. Loki has seen those looks way too many times in the past, always on the faces of Thor and whatever friends he had and never on his own in the mirror. They're excited, determined, anticipatory guises. Loki wants to know why Thor, Sif, and Fandral are wearing them so flawlessly (and don't they wear _everything_ that way?).

"Where are you going?" he asks in a carefully nonchalant voice, dropping his backpack onto the sofa. Everything about him oozes the perfect amount of indifference and coolness, and it feels good to be so smooth instead of flustered, so collected instead of crumbling.

Thor looks up from where he's extremely sloppily and hurriedly lacing his boots, blinking like he had no idea that Loki possessed the ability of speech or something (oh, how _surprising_). And then, just because everything will stop working correctly and buildings will burn and children will die if he _doesn't_, he takes a million years to formulate an answer. Loki does a pretty good job of concealing his irritation during this epoch.

"Steve's throwing a homecoming party," Thor finally says with a wide grin, finishing tying up one foot and moving on to the other, "It's gonna be fucking _awesome._"

"Watch, it sucks because you said that. Thanks, Thor," Fandral puts in, shrugging on his corduroy jacket (Which is kind of stupid; it's in the middle of September, so the weather should be warm enough, right? Right.). He glances at Loki, and the man averts his gaze before Fandral can wink or smirk or check him out or whatever the hell else he might do. Jesus Christ.

"Shut your friggin' mouth," Thor retorts, but there's not much heat in it, "Wait until we actually get there. The whole student body is gonna be _crammed _into that house."

"Like toothpaste," Sif muses, standing somewhat impatiently by the door. She has her hands on her hips and her foot keeps bouncing up and down on the floor in this irritating, _Get a fucking move on_ rhythm. It vaguely reminds Loki of his mother, but only because of the sternness in which Sif is behaving. Actually, it's pretty fucking annoying when Sif's the one doing it.

"Like toothpaste!" Thor repeats, getting to his feet. He's got this almost childishly ecstatic expression on his face, like he's fixing to go to Disneyworld instead of Steve Rogers' house, and it occurs to Loki that Thor really fucking _loves_ his friends, loves people.

Or he just likes to party a hell of a lot. Same difference, right?

Loki is moving to go down the hallway when Thor's giant hand on his shoulder stops him. He trains a hybrid disinterested/tired look on his brother, asks, "What?"

"Don't you wanna come with us?" Thor asks, a note of unusual urgency in his voice. He says it like he expected Loki to be on his knees begging to come with them and be cool and get wasted and grovel to Steve like everyone else does.

Uhm, _no_.

But something inside of Loki _does_ want to go. Not to bow down under Rogers or to get entirely too intoxicated (while Loki will admit that getting drunk is fun to do, he really only likes doing it by himself or with Tony and/or Frigga). He wants to actually and actively be part of the same thing Thor is, and the naïve part of him is screaming _YESYESYES_ to the notion. The reason said part of him is considered naïve is because common sense says shit like that doesn't work out in party settings with Steve Rogers and Clint Barton and Bruce Banner and Logan Howlett and a plethora of pretty, popular people who all _love_ Thor and couldn't give two shits about Loki.

So Loki is standing there having this debate with himself, trying to weigh the pros and cons of going and staying, and Thor is looking at him so _earnestly_ and his hand feels really warm and _shit._ It's practically impossible to think like this.

"Aww, come _on_, kitten!" Fandral breaks Loki's already jumbled train of thought with his rather rude but incredibly persuasive tone (what the fuck gives, man?), "It's a Friday! You _can_ have fun every once and awhile."

The worst (and best) part about this is that Fandral actually has a point. Who'd have thought it?

Thor smiles rascally, catching Loki's attention. "He's right, brother," he agrees with his stupid _Loki listen to me I'm your brother and I'm always right because I'm older_ voice, "When's the last time you went to a party, huh?"

Probably their father's last year. But Thor most likely doesn't mean _that_ kind of party, and honestly? It was one of the worst events Loki has ever experienced in his life, simply because the party was practically Thor's as well (_Hey everyone, come look at and be in awe of my perfect son Thor!_).

Thor mistakes Loki's silence for faulty memory, not displeasure, and says, "Exactly. Come with us, man." He squeezes Loki's shoulder hard enough to bruise (Loki only expresses his pain with a wince), grinning enticingly.

At this point? Loki really doesn't even care. If things go horribly, Tony will most likely be somewhere in the massive sea of people. If they don't? Well, then. Loki finally has a reason to smile, right?

So he says yes, and then Thor, Sif, and Fandral are dragging him out the door and shoving him in the back of Thor's Hummer before he can even think about changing his mind (and that's impressive, because Loki can change his mind pretty damn quickly).

"I knew you'd bite," Fandral is teasing him as Thor speeds at about sixty miles an hour (which is _way too fucking fast_, Thor) to the party. And this situation is very uncomfortable and wrong-feeling all of a sudden for a number of reasons:

Loki's in the backseat with Fandral. With _Fandral_. _**Fandral.**_And remember that Fandral has made it his life's mission to molest Loki once or twice. Yep.

Thor is driving a billion miles over the speed limit. Did I mention that already?

Let's get even more illegal and dangerous. Sif is practically sitting in the motherfucking center console, whispering God knows what in Thor's ear (though it's probably something he likes, because he keeps laughing and Loki keeps wanting to vomit).

The most _horrible_ (like, nauseating, vulgar, _makes-your-ears-bleed_ horrible) music is blasting from Thor's speakers at a deafening volume. It's that mainstream, piece-of-crap, terribly autotuned and soaked in effects bullshit that Loki cannot _stand_. Thor's death metal is better than this.

He's going to a party with Thor.

He's going to a party with Thor.

He's doing something with Thor.

He's in a car being driven by Thor (which still triggers feelings of panic inside him).

_He's going to a party with Thor._

Loki is almost shaking (and I'm being totally serious, here; this is _not _an exaggeration) when Thor haphazardly parks on the curb of the street. When he glances out of the window, he almost throws up because oh my _God_, would you _look at all the __**people**_? They're practically spilling out of the house. Like toothpaste.

(Fun fact: Loki doesn't like people. I'm sure I've mentioned it before and it might be a little blatantly obvious, but it's pretty damn important to note that he _really __**does not **__fucking like people_. Crowds make him nervous and tense like you wouldn't believe. Everything goes downhill once he's around more than twenty human beings and he's not in class or at work. And there are definitely more than twenty people _outside_ of the house. Just outside. Just in the front yard. All in all, you've pretty much fucked yourself for the night, dear Loki.)

Fandral and Thor let out these animalistic whoops as they get out of the car, slamming the doors utterly too hard in their excitement. Sif removes herself a lot more civilly, and when Loki steps out of the Jeep, he feels like he's going to crumple to the ground and just die right there on the sidewalk.

And then Thor is slinging his arm around Loki's shoulders from his right side, Fandral doing the same from his left while Sif slides into Thor's free arm (this sucks too fucking much because Loki is _so_ much slimmer than Thor and Fandral, which means he's being crushed), and his brother is practically screaming, "Welcome to the time of your lives, my friends!"

Yeah, Thor. You go ahead and think that.

Loki almost trips when Thor and Fandral start _walking_ (a warning would be nice, thanks), and the only thing that keeps him from falling and busting his goddamn face is Fandral's arm, which wraps rather unwelcomely _around his waist_.

"Clumsy, much?" Fandral goads as he rests his hand in an almost too obviously suggestive way on his hip, and _no_, Loki is _not _clumsy, bitch (he really isn't, even though he's been doing a lot of nearly-to-all out falling lately). Loki's skin crawls unpleasantly at the contact, but he can't move away since he's sandwiched so tightly between Thor and his harasser. Fun stuff, right?

Loki grits his teeth as they approach the house, taking in the front yard and internally freaking the fuck out at the sight. Holy shit.

There's about twenty people standing outside around a fucking Johnny Bravo fun jump, with maybe ten more inside the thing. Some of them are just standing around in little groups, talking and laughing. Others are chasing each other around, juggling Dixie cups of alcohol and playing with the way the strobe lights make everything slow down. The party only started thirty minutes ago and people are already extraordinarily drunk.

As soon as they're close enough to the door, Thor lets go of Loki and Sif and pushes himself to the front, and Loki just can't _not _roll his eyes. He does it partially because Fandral's arm tightens around him, and _holy fuck can you let him go?_, but mostly because he knows Thor is doing this to inflate his own massive ego, because he needs to enter first so everybody can _see_ him and _love_ him and _want_ him first.

And sure enough, as soon as he walks in, there's this collective scream from a throng of girls around the door (cheerleaders, _ugh_), and people left and right are looking up with these knowing grins, like they telepathically all know _Hot damn, Thor's here!._ Fandral laughs. Loki sighs.

"Thor!" some chick cries, and when Loki turns to look, Emma Frost is launching herself at his brother, slinging her long arms around his neck and wetly kissing his cheek in a far too forward fashion. Thor smirks like he actually deserves her attention, but he doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him. He's just a linebacker and she's just a cheerleader – a cheerleader wearing the skimpiest fucking tank top _ever_ and a belt. I say '_belt_' because '_skirt_' is too generous.

Two more girls come running to meet Thor and Emma, and shit. Fandral, Loki, and Sif are still crowded all up in the doorway because Thor won't _get the fuck out of the way_.

"Steve was worried you weren't going to make it," Wanda loudly informs him, sipping heavily from her Dixie cup. Her more serious companion twines her arm with Thor's and tugs, already pulling him into the thick crowd of people.

"He's in the kitchen," Natasha practically yells over the blaring music (which is just as horrible as the shit in the car) when Thor gives her a quizzical look. She's actually kind of scary for a cheerleader.

Thor doesn't seem to mind too much, though, and he glances back at his friends, ordering, "Come on, guys. Time's a-wasting." as Emma takes his other arm and steers him as well. Le sigh.

Fandral starts moving immediately and _goddammit_, Loki almost falls again. As he steadies himself with a grumble, he glances back at Sif, who hasn't budged from where she's standing in the doorway. Her eyes are hard and trained on Thor's wall of a back, watching the hefty man being pulled into the mob.

Loki takes advantage of his natural agility and bends out of Fandral's grasp, ignoring the man's whine of protest and moving closer to Sif. He doesn't know why he suddenly cares so much, but he does, and Loki hasn't made a habit of questioning his emotions (even when they drive him nuts and make no sense).

"Sif?" he asks, brows furrowing when she finally looks at him, "Are you okay?"

Sif's jaw clenches and her eyes turn to stone, and then she's pushing past Loki to move into the crowd in the opposite direction of Thor, Emma, and Natasha.

Well, you're welcome, bitch.

To be fair, Loki knows he's done the same thing to a whole lot of people in his lifetime. He's done it to Frigga, to Thor, to Odin, to Tony. People trying to reach out and touch him and hold him and coddle him and say _Everything's going to be alright, I'm here to help you_ just won't roll with him. But that doesn't mean he can't get pissed off because Sif so rudely rejected his concern, especially when he's definitely not the type to hold hands and kiss foreheads. Fuck that shit.

Loki lets Fandral grab his hand and drag him through the throng of people after Thor, biting back a jolt of anger. He doesn't like it that he's touching Fandral. He doesn't like how everybody around him is constantly shifting, propelling him forward simply with the rhythm in which their bodies move. He doesn't like this feeling of violation and weird betrayal, even though Sif really _isn't_ his friend. But let's not forget about what Thor's doing, too.

When they finally end up in the kitchen (which is thankfully _much_ more vacant and ridiculously huge, like everything in Steve's house), Fandral fortunately lets go of Loki's hand. Loki stuffs the appendage in the steel-gray pocket of his jeans and leans solitarily in the doorway, watching as Steve looks up from the woman he's talking to (Loki thinks she's Jean Grey simply because of her fiery hair, but he can't be sure) and grins upon seeing his brother.

"_Thor!_" he howls just as said man yells his name, and it takes _so long_ for them to finish screaming the one-syllable words that Loki is completely perplexed by the time they're done. Why the fuck do they feel the need to draw the exclamations out? They _obviously_ know each other's names (and who _wouldn't_ know their names when they're the two most prominent Elysian Lions on the team?).

Steve and Thor share this hug that looks more like a fucking fight than an embrace, because, in Loki's humble opinion, they're practically pulling each other's shirts off and roaring nonsense, beating one another's backs with mallets for fists. They pull away growling at each other.

Loki will never understand this form of primitive communication Thor likes to call _bro-speak_.

"It's about time you got here!" Steve says with a grin, and it's in moments like these that Loki can understand why everyone likes Steve so much; it's hard not to, what with his warmth and easy friendliness. But there are also reasons to dislike him, and Loki is just as familiar with them.

Thor claps a hand on Steve's shoulder and shakes him, returning his friend's wide, toothy smile. "We kinda ran a little late…" he starts to say, and _can you speak correctly, Thor?_

"No thanks to you and Sif," Fandral cuts in, and Steve and Thor look over to him and Loki as if just noticing they were there. Thor's expression is irritated, and Steve's is mildly interested.

"Don't get pissy when I got you a date, douchebag," Thor snaps, smirking with a hint of spite, "_You're _the one who wanted to wait."

And Loki is standing there, suddenly tremendously uncomfortable and just _fucked_. Date? _What?_

Is Thor talking about _him_?

"Hey, Loki!" Steve amiably greets him, breaking Loki out of the glass case of confusion and crossness he's locked in. More out of method than genuine politeness, Loki forces himself to move out of the doorway and go shake Steve's hand. He's hyper-aware of Fandral's eyes on his back as he moves, and he's really fucking hating that.

"You're Thor's brother?" the woman next to Steve courteously asks, and when Loki actually looks at her, he realizes that one, she_ is_ Jean Grey, and two, she's very beautiful. Beautiful in a natural, wholehearted way; quite unlike her fellow cheerleaders.

Smiling graciously, some of his bad mood ebbing at Jean's joyfulness, Loki nods, shakes her hand when she extends it, and replies, "That's accurate."

Jean beams back, and her smile is a really gorgeous, supermodel breed that Loki instantly admires her for. "I'm Jean," she introduces herself.

Loki's about to say something when Emma Fucking Frost obnoxiously inquires, "Aren't you dating Tony Stark?"

Fuck being pleasant. Loki wants to smack a bitch, _hard_.

Turning glacial emerald eyes on Emma, Loki asks in an incredibly _frozen_ voice, "Does it really fucking matter?"

And then the world thanks God for Steve Rogers, because the man suddenly and loudly questions Thor, "Where's Sif, man? Didn't you mention her?" He laughs this perfectly easy laugh, but Loki knows it's only for the sake of easing the tension in the room.

That's another thing about Steve. He's like oil; if anything starts tripping up and the friction gets to be too much to handle, he's right there fixing it, making sure everything runs properly. He does it flawlessly, too, and while sometimes, like right now, Loki can appreciate it, other times it just pisses him off _so much_. Like when Sif and Thor are having a much-needed quarrel and Steve gives Thor the most _amazing _advice that basically says _ignore the problem_, and although that does usually end the disagreement, it only makes the next one much worse. Or when Loki's issues get too much for Tony to handle (this is rare, but it does happen), and Loki finds himself terribly depressed and feeling betrayed because Tony's got his BFF Steve to make sure everything is a-okay.

Loki averts his gaze away from Emma's shocked face (which is kind of funny, because she was drinking from Wanda's cup as she asked the question, and now her cheeks are all puffed out and filled with beer so she looks like a fucking goldfish) as Thor curiously looks around, scanning the room for Sif. Jean smiles empathetically at Loki, and _jeeze_, can they be best friends now or what?

"I dunno," Thor replies to Steve's question, shrugging flippantly, "She was just behind us."

"_Sif_?" Emma asks (What the fuck is wrong with you, girl? Can you go a whole minute without being a bitch?), her eyebrows raising as she exchanges a skeptical glance with Wanda. She smirks playfully at Thor when he turns to her, adding over the lip of her cup, "You came with _her_?"

Thor doesn't miss a beat. He grins at her, says, "Of course I did. That says something, doesn't it?"

Loki has to commend Thor just a little for that. He's not really defending Sif, but he isn't straight-up allowing Emma to be a skank about his friend/girlfriend/whatever Sif is to him.

As Emma's eyes nearly pop out of her head yet _again_ (damn, Skywalkers are showing her up all over the place today), Steve announces, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm kinda feelin' the dance floor right about now."

And it's like everybody at the party heard him (they probably did, what with the weird telepathy thing they have going on), because the music gets louder and people start screaming and the house practically explodes with the sheer amount of _noise_ inside of it. Steve and Thor easily grab up Jean, Emma, Wanda, and Natasha and head out of the kitchen; when Thor tries to drag him with them, Loki coldly declines.

So he's standing there in Steve Rogers' kitchen with Fandral. Now, this situation automatically _sucks_. He's in the house of a person who is just _barely_ his friend, set up with a borderline rapist. On a scale of one-to-ten, Loki feels like this is a good autofellatio.

Fandral watches Loki incuriously as he leans against the counter, sighing softly. Loki presses the heel of his palm against his eyes, trying to ease the anxiety-borne headache he can feel coming on. He doesn't realize Fandral is approaching him until he opens his eyes and, oh. He's right there.

"You don't wanna go dance?" Fandral asks, and his tone is surprisingly gentle and smooth. Loki knows better than to fall for it, though; he's pretty sure Fandral's just talking that way to get what he wants, and he's definitely _not_ going on the long list of people who fell for the act.

Instead of answering the man, Loki scrutinizes him with hard eyes and snaps, "What the hell was Thor talking about?"

Fandral blinks twice, his face contorting into a confused expression. "What do you mean?" he replies.

Oh my God. He is _not_ playing dumb, not with _Loki_.

Sharply rolling his eyes and scoffing, Loki snarls, "Don't you dare fucking bullshit me. What did he mean, '_date_'? Was he talking about me?"

Fandral watches him for a few moments, anxiously biting the inside of his lip, and _fuck_. Loki doesn't have time for this shit (but he actually does, because it isn't like he can go anywhere or do anything until he finds Tony or something).

When this bitch finally speaks, his voice is soft and reserved, and he's saying, "Yeah. He was."

Loki's eyes go wide and dark, the irises steadily turning a deep green with emotion and rage. His lips tighten and his cheeks hollow out and Fandral is fucking _right_ to look scared, because Loki is slipping into what's very close to hysteria. Yeah. It's that bad.

Just as Loki raises his arms to push against Fandral's chest, ready to scream and/or curse him the _fuck_ out, Fandral nimbly catches his wrists in his hands, pleading with his eyes and his words to, "Wait, wait, wait. Please, calm down. _Please_."

Glaring stormily at Fandral, Loki shakes his head in heated disbelief at the man's pleas. "I'm not going to fucking _calm down!_" he yells, trying to wrestle his arms away from Fandral, "You set me up!"

Fandral's face takes on an expression of hurt (which Loki thinks is both hilarious and insulting), and he argues, "Technically _Thor_ set you up."

"With _you!_" Loki loudly retorts, and he feels like he's going to combust from the wrath building inside him, swelling to immense proportions that terrify the living shit out of him.

And then Fandral scowls, offended. "What the fuck is wrong with _me_, huh?" he asks in an accusatory tone, his blue eyes mirroring Loki's in their largeness and their anger.

Loki can't help it. It's really a horrible thing to do, especially when he has no idea how Fandral will react, but he's pissed and impulsive and _doesn't care_ that much about what Fandral thinks. He laughs, and the cackle is cold and biting and vindictive and _oooh. _So _wrong_.

It's when Fandral yanks Loki against him and kisses him hard on the mouth that Loki realizes he probably shouldn't have laughed. Uh-unh. That was a _terrible_ idea, especially when he's trapped against this counter and Fandral is holding him like a vice or a straightjacket, pressing brutally against his mouth. The kiss is almost painful, and Loki loathes it so much that he nearly starts crying right then and there (but he's much too furious to cry).

When Fandral finally releases him, Loki stumbles back into the counter, panting in time with the other. They stare at each other, both wide-eyed and enraged and upset and confused. And then, it's like Fandral abruptly realizes something, because his eyes change and he's looking at Loki a lot differently than he was a second ago.

"Loki…" he starts, but doesn't finish. Loki won't let him finish, not today.

Loki thrusts his hands forward and roughly shoves Fandral away from him, setting his mouth into a hard, angry line. And Fandral just lets him, numbly staggering back and watching him with these awful puppy eyes that Loki refuses to fall for.

"You're disgusting," Loki gasps, pretending not to see the way Fandral winces at the comment and rushing out of the kitchen and into the mob of dancing, screaming people.

The music is too loud and the room is too hot. Loki's head is spinning as he squeezes his way in and around clusters of popping, locking, gyrating, twisting individuals, partially because of the kiss, partially because the heat and the movement of everything is dizzying to him, and partially because of his fury. Of all the things he'd expected from Fandral, he _never_ anticipated something like _that_.

Someone rams against his body, knocking Loki into an unsuspecting stranger. The jostled girl turns to glare at him but, upon recognizing who he is, her eyes become delighted.

"Loki?" Kitty asks, and she really is adorable with all her happiness and her generosity, "I didn't think you'd be here."

Loki tries to smile, but the expression probably ends up looking like a confused grimace, unsure whether to portray joy or displeasure. "Me neither," he manages, and _fuck_, his voice sounds horrible and broken and _upset_.

Kitty's face turns extremely concerned almost comically fast. "What's wrong?" she demands, knocking into Loki when a tall, lanky boy sways on past her, spilling alcohol all over people's feet. Loki grasps her hands before she can plant her face on his chest, sighing almost involuntarily. There are _way_ too many people bad-touching him right now, and he's scared that he's finally going to have that panic attack in the middle of one of the biggest events of the year. Then he'll be forever known as that sophomore that freaked out and died at Steve Rogers' homecoming party. Awesome.

"Nothing," he lies easily (it's almost sad how I can say this is extraordinarily _normal_ for Loki; he's so skilled at lying, it's almost hard for he _himself_ to figure out what's true and what's false), not meeting Kitty's eyes as he asks, "Do you know where Tony is?"

Kitty blushes a bit (she always blushes whenever Loki and Tony are in the same room/sentence/situation/etc.), replying with a small giggle, "Sorry. I haven't seen him all night."

Loki doesn't stop himself from groaning, well aware of how immature he appears, and he frees Kitty's hands, quickly throwing her a "Thank you," as he continues to surge through the crowd.

"You sure you're okay?" Kitty calls after him. Loki doesn't answer.

After he's finally escaped to the backyard (he had to witness Thor and Emma virtually dry humping to a dreadful song called _Lollipop_, watch Steve failingly attempt to do the worm; his dance would have been more-appropriately titled _the dying raccoon_, and have his ass or his crotch fondled at least fifteen times to get there), Loki lets out a huge sigh and surveys his surroundings. It isn't much better than the inside of the house, but at least there's space to walk without stepping on someone's fucking toes, and he can breathe cooler air.

An alarming number of people are in or around the pool, and that whole section of the yard is basically a mass-drowning waiting to happen. Shit, people are lackadaisically dancing on the cement around the pool, balancing dangerously on the lip that separates solid ground from chlorine water. Loki watches, distressed, as Johnny Storm jerks his sister by her ankles into the pool, laughing drunkenly. Had that been any less expected by Sue and any rougher by Johnny, Loki's pretty sure Susan Storm would have bashed her head against the pavement and passed out or suffered a serious concussion before helplessly drowning in the pool. And not a person would have cared.

Several more mixed clusters of sophomores, juniors, and seniors stand in the grass, drinking heavily and having loud discussions about how she said this about her, and this person hooked up with that person, and _damn, so-and-so is fine_. There seems to be a severely disproportionate alcohol-to-food ratio, because Loki hasn't seen more than three people actually eating something, but nine out of ten of the guests here are drinking like fish.

In the far left corner of the yard, there's a trampoline with a couple of dark, indistinguishable figures sitting and chatting on it. It's probably the only part of the lot not swarming with drunk, horny students. Loki is fixing to make his way over there (because it looks like Heaven in the middle of a hellish universe) when Steve suddenly busts through the door, dragging his girlfriend Peggy Carter after him and sipping from a beer bottle as he strides across the yard towards the trampoline. Loki leans against the house indignantly and watches, somewhat miffed because he knows that wherever Steve goes, throngs of people come tripping running after him. That little piece of Heaven won't remain peaceful for long.

Steve leans over the edge of the trampoline to talk to one of the people sprawled on it, Peggy standing behind him with her arms draped around his waist. It's not that Loki's actually interested in the relatively unremarkable situation. It's just that he has nothing much else to do, and he's still pretty wounded, and he _can't find Tony_.

And then, Steve and Peggy are leading the way back to the house, a man sliding off of the trampoline to follow them. Loki instantly recognizes the figure's odd, drunken gait, having spent too many nights observing it as his friend paced a dorm room, ranting loudly about nothing.

Loki has barely moved away from the wall when Tony notices him, and the man is immediately grinning like a fool and running to him with an obvious, if somewhat clumsy, skip in his step. Some of the distress inside Loki lessens when Tony wraps his long arms around his neck, tugging him close and squeezing him tightly. He hugs Tony back with a tiny, relieved sigh, just a bit shy of euphoric now that he's found his friend.

"You're here!" Tony drawls happily, pressing a sloppy kiss to his temple. The man pulls back a bit to take a drag from the Dixie cup in his hand, asking, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

Loki smiles thinly, replies, "I wasn't planning to do so." Steve and Peggy approach the two of them just as Loki says this, and the way Steve's face falls when he hears the man's words is actually pretty fucking hilarious.

"You hate me that much, Loki?" Steve groans, but, in his drunkenness, the lack of seriousness in his statement is blatantly apparent, and he, Peggy, and Tony burst into laughter like he's just said the most hysterical thing _ever_ in the history of the motherfucking universe. Loki maintains his solemnity with almost frightening ease; Tony seems to notice.

"You need to get drunk," he muses, drinking from his cup as if to emphasize his point. Loki frowns a bit (Tony gets _really_ indiscriminate and blunt when he's intoxicated and, even though he isn't particularly subtle while sober, the straightforward, almost rude honesty he has when he's drunk can rub Loki the wrong way if he doesn't have the same blood alcohol level), ready to protest, when Steve cuts in.

"And _you_ need to fix my computer," he tells Tony, already moving towards the house with Peggy in tow, "People are getting a-antsy."

Tony looks at Loki, arm still swathed warmly around his neck. He takes in the mildly injured expression on his friend's face and his dark eyes soften a bit, a small smile tugging at his lips. Tony kisses at Loki's temple once more, and the gesture doesn't really do anything for the slimmer, darker of them until Tony whispers, "We'll talk, I promise. Just let me fix Steve's shit, okay?"

Feeling somewhat reassured, Loki lets Tony drag him into the house after Steve and Peggy, leaning into his friend's side for a trace of comfort.

When they get inside, Loki takes note of a rather drastic change in the setting: there isn't any godawful music blasting his ears off and rendering him deaf. All of the intense dancing that had been taking place moments before has transformed into this awkward standing around, glancing at people and attempting to make stunted, inebriated conversation. Loki almost (just _almost_) feels dickish for finding petty amusement in how uncomfortable everybody suddenly is, and he doesn't try to hide the minute smirk on his face as Tony gently moves him along through the crowd.

On their way to the front of the room, Loki spies Thor sitting against the wall in an oddly-placed swivel chair (where the fuck did _that_ come from?) with Emma straddling his lap. Now, just _seeing_ Thor right now makes Loki want to scream or cry or destroy something living and/or beautiful, and the fact that Emma Frost can't possibly seem to keep her hands/mouth/body off of his brother makes his emotions that much harder to handle. In all his life, Loki doesn't think he's ever been so embarrassed, upset, or pissed with his brother, excluding the accident.

_How am I even going to wake up tomorrow morning?_, Loki honestly wonders to himself. The thought of living another day truthfully scares the _shit_ out of him (I know that sounds awfully dramatic, but it's the reality of the situation) and, while he's felt like this numerous times before, this feeling of dread and exhaustion and absolute, undeterred rage and depression really, _really_ hurts. It hurts almost too much.

Fortunately, tomorrow is a Saturday, which means Loki doesn't have to feel guilty about spending as much of the day as possible with Tony (never mind how hungover the man will probably be).

"I don't know what happened," Steve tells Tony with a look of bewilderment as they approach his laptop at the front of the room. He sips briefly from his beer bottle, goes on, "The music just stopped playi–"

"Yeah, I got it," Tony cuts Steve off, and Loki kind of wants to laugh at the determined-yet-drunk glint in his friend's eyes. Tony takes a long drink from his Dixie cup before carelessly dropping it onto the table in which the laptop sits, and then he's working the computer with impressive speed and ease.

It's always amused and awed Loki how much of a technophiliac Tony is. His friend probably enjoys the company of his computer and iPhone more than spending time with actual _people _(not that Loki really blames him).

Tony pulls a face and stops his feverish clicking for a moment. He starts looking around the desk area, bending over the laptop to examine the back of it, and the sight is actually really funny, considering how drunk (_how _drunk?) he is. With a barely audible, irritated noise, Tony deftly grabs a thick black cord and plugs it into the laptop. And then the house practically shatters again, first with the sudden explosion of horrible music, next with the raucous, collective cheer that rumbles through the mob of people like a thunderstorm. Loki closes his eyes against the noise, biting the inside of his mouth and _shit_, why does he feel like sobbing all of a sudden?

Steve lets out this obnoxious howl that makes Loki desperately want to fall over and get trampled by an elephant, and suddenly all of these people in the near vicinity of the table are dancing like a million typhoons, and _holy crap_, is the _earth moving_? Because that's what it feels like with all the movement and the sound and the force coming from everywhere hateful in the universe. I.E., Steve Rogers' house.

"Come on!" Tony yells over the roar of the music, grabbing his cup and winding his arm tight and protective around Loki's body, "We need to get some alcohol in you."

Loki wants to argue against the idea, but he doesn't, because he feels far too weak to do _anything_ really. He lets Tony practically heave him through the crowd of dancers, ridding himself of any remorse for purposefully leaning all of his weight into his friend. He does it mostly because he doesn't want to drink anything, not with so many people around him already intoxicated, but also because _fuck movement_. Loki'd rather be sitting or lying down somewhere, preferably in the middle of a highway.

"Vodka or rum?" Tony asks as soon as they're in the kitchen, letting go of Loki a few paces into the room. Steve and Peggy brush past him after Tony, probably in pursuit of more alcohol as well.

What Loki doesn't understand is why they would like to get so heavily drunk _for fun_. I mean, it's not like he himself hasn't casually indulged in alcohol just for the heck of it, because he has, but to get as completely wasted as Steve and the rest of the student body, he'd have to be intensely depressed and/or trying to forget about something. Why would you want to inebriate yourself when you're as happy and as perfect as Steve?

At least he knows that alcohol is something much more than simply _recreation _for Tony.

"I don't care," Loki replies in a slightly frosty voice, crossing his arms over his lean chest and staring at the floor. He doesn't see the hard look Tony gives him, but he can feel it. Does he care?

Not really.

"I call the vodka," Steve says, grabbing a long, clear bottle of said beverage as he does. He and Peggy take turns refilling their drinks, quietly talking and laughing while Tony snatches a few more plastic red cups and the remaining bottle of rum. Loki continues to wait and glare at the tile until Tony is slipping his arm around him again, steering him back into the living room with Steve and Peggy following behind.

All Loki wanted to do is talk to Tony, go home, or both. Unfortunately, the desire for conversation is slowly diminishing, no thanks to Tony's drunkenness and Steve's constant presence. Loki kind of wishes he could die right about now.

"Hey, Steve?" Tony asks, turning to his friend. They both lean instinctually towards each other, swaying with inebriation, and Loki reins in the urge to just grab Tony to him and refuse to let go. "Can we borrow your bedroom for awhile?" Tony goes on, slurping loudly from his cup. It's almost as if he can't go three minutes without having a drink, and the observation upsets the hell out of Loki.

Steve grins suggestively at Tony, glancing between him and Loki, who is giving him what is probably the most discreet _Get the fuck out I hate you and your perfection_ look _ever_, and saying, "Sure. Just don't get too nasty, alright? I sleep in that bed."

Tony, Steve and Peggy crack the fuck up again, laughing like what Steve said was actually funny (which it really wasn't). It isn't until Loki starts to tug away from Tony, far too irritated and distraught to be dealing with shit like this, that Tony decides to remember him again. Thanks, man.

(Fun Fact that really isn't a Fun Fact but actually is more like a guideline: Tony can be the most wonderful person in the world to Loki. He can also make Loki want to kill himself, especially in situations involving alcohol, drugs, or Steve Rogers.)

"Hey, hey, hey," Tony says, moving to drag Loki against his side once more, "Calm down, will you?" He cranes his neck to look Loki in the eyes, and Loki doesn't stop himself or feel bad for glaring back at him.

"Just get me _the fuck _away from here, or I will hate you with everything inside of me and you will _never_ touch me again. Understand?" Loki growls, holding Tony's focus with his icy eyes and hard voice. It's a gross exaggeration, what he said (He wouldn't ever do that; _please_. Loki may be depressive and have the occasional death wish, but he's anything but a masochist.), but it catches Tony's attention pretty damn quickly.

"Yeah, I get it," Tony swiftly replies, sipping from his cup and navigating Loki through the mob towards the front of the room, to the staircase. Loki forces himself to not look too closely at any of the people they pass, afraid that he might notice Thor and break down or something. The moment they're at the foot of the stairs, Loki grabs the bottle of rum from Tony to make the man's ascent easier (faster) and starts climbing, taking the steps two at a time in his frantic need to _get away_.

Tony meets him at the top of the staircase a few moments later, barely dodging Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson when they go hurtling past him down the stairs, laughing loudly. Loki easily, petulantly, catches Tony when he threatens to fall, and Tony repays him with a grin and a fleeting nuzzle to the cheek that Loki crossly pulls away from.

"S'that bad, huh?" Tony notes with a scowl, frowning deeply when Loki rolls his eyes and looks away. He sighs with a touch of distress before taking Loki's arm and leading him down the hall, saying, "I'm not _trying_ to hurt your feelings, you know."

Loki frowns shamefully, glancing at the floor as Tony pulls him into Steve's bedroom and kicks the door closed. "Sorry, Tony," he replies.

Tony quickly steals the bottle of rum from Loki's fingers, placing it, along with the cups he carries, on the carpet. "You're forgiven," he breathes, and then he's grabbing Loki by the sides and pushing him (with a hint of tenderness) against the door. Loki makes a small, surprised noise when Tony moves forward to kiss him, and the gesture is almost too much like the episode with Fandral from earlier. He flinches and squirms, squeezing his hands around Tony's shoulders and tasting alcohol thick on his lips.

Tony hastily breaks the kiss to press his face against Loki's neck, sighing heavily. He's guilty now; Loki can tell, and one part of him wants to be a pissy bitch and let Tony feel bad about himself (which probably isn't smart, since Tony does that enough already), while another part is telling him to exercise sympathy and patience.

What the fuck is wrong with his emotions today?

"Tony, you're drunk," Loki sighs, still holding Tony's shoulders tightly.

Tony laughs quietly into his neck, raising his head a bit to smirk at Loki. "You think, Captain Obvious?" he drawls, chuckling at the end of the jibe.

Okay, screw being nice for now. Loki glowers darkly at Tony and abruptly shoves him away, ignoring a minute twinge of remorse when the man stumbles a bit. He swiftly moves past his friend, roughly and spitefully bumping his shoulder as he does.

"Fuck you, Tony," he snaps as he plops down onto Steve's low-to-the-ground platform bed, and it's actually pretty fucking weird to be sitting on Steve Rogers' most likely million-dollar mattress like it's his own.

Tony gazes wistfully at him, clumsily steadying himself with a hand braced on the door. He grabs the rum and Dixie cups from the floor with a resigned sort of noise, and Loki continues to watch him tempestuously, slumped over with his long legs folded under him.

"I'm sorry, Loki," Tony murmurs as he approaches said man, stopping beside the bed to look down at his addressee. His voice is soft and slow and thick as he goes on, "You're right. I'm drunk as a skunk."

Loki stares up at Tony with lasers for eyes, replying, "I don't like it when you drink." He isn't very appreciative of the sudden difference of height between them, because it makes him feel like a freshman always in Tony's shadow (not that Tony thought so) again.

Tony laughs bitterly, his eyes hardening just a little as he says, "Yeah, you and the rest of the world, babe."

"Don't call me that!" Loki barks in a suddenly-loud, urgent tone, his hand snatching out to take the bottle of rum and a plastic cup from Tony's grasp. He jerkily unscrews the bottle cap and starts to pour the dark brown liquid into his cup, adding, "Not when you're being such an asshole."

Tony narrows his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning down into a small grimace. "Well, _fuck_, I said I'm sorry, Loki!" he argues, brows coming together, and at this point? Loki's unsure whether to just go the fuck off on Tony (who is the only real friend he has here as well as a possible ticket home) or do the extremely uncharacteristic thing and give up. He ends up doing neither.

Dropping the bottle on the floor (thank _God_ it doesn't break or spill, because can you imagine how delighted Steve would be with that?), Loki snaps his head up to glare at Tony, snarling, "Just shut up and get the fuck down here."

Yep. His feelings are officially fucked _up_ tonight.

Tony doesn't hesitate in falling to his knees and scooting right up against the side of the bed, shrugging his leather jacket off of his shoulders and carelessly onto the floor as he does. He rests each forearm on the mattress at either side of Loki, leaning up to press his forehead into the other's and sighing in what could be relief, happiness, or both when Loki digs the fingers of his right hand into his dark hair and pulls him up for a firm, brief kiss.

"You haven't been taking your medicine," Tony notes with a far too satisfied grin, nuzzling against Loki's chin, "Bad, bad, bad…"

"You don't mind," Loki replies lowly and pulls away to drink from his cup; the rum is a bit too strong, but does he give a fuck?

Tony is nosing contentedly into his neck, getting all up in his space and looping his arms around Loki's waist as he purrs, "Not when you're super-extra-friendly and more willing to let me _looove_ you."

Loki can't bring himself to laugh, not when the noise would come out sounding so _fake_,so he takes another sip of rum, idly running his hand down Tony's back and watching the way it makes his friend twitch with pleasure.

"So it's completely fine that I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster of death as long as Tony Stark gets touched the right way," he says, voice slippery and cold like ice, "I see."

Now that was pretty low, even for Loki, and when Tony pulls back and looks at him with these round, deeply offended eyes, he realizes it with a huge pang of guilt. And he feels like a total shit for saying what he did, simply because he's _upset_.

"Oh, Tony," Loki sighs, anger quickly giving way to sadness as he pulls his friend's face to him, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, "I didn't mean that…"

"I know," Tony grumbles, kissing Loki back and practically dragging him off the side of the bed when he tugs him closer. Loki obediently unfolds his slim legs and lets Tony rise between them, sliding his arms around the man's shoulders and carefully holding his cup upright when Tony grips him under his thighs and lifts him off of the mattress.

"I've said worse things to you," Tony says as he knees his way onto the bed, laying Loki down in the center of it. It feels girly and romantic and entirely too sex-after-the-first-date-ish, but whatever. Everything is weird between them.

"Yes, but I'm sober," Loki replies, drinking from his cup and leaning against a short stack of pillows as he watches Tony reach over the side of the bed to get his own rum, "Anything horrible like that, you've said to me while you were drunk."

Tony hums into his cup as he takes a drink from it, lying back next to Loki and getting comfortable. "It doesn't matter," he assures his companion, fixing him with a look that's surprisingly assertive, considering how intoxicated he is, "You're pissed off. People tend to say shit they don't mean when they're upset, right?"

Loki frowns. "People also become surprisingly truthful when they're hurt," he indicates, even though it really doesn't help his case by doing so. God, what is _wrong_ with him?

Tony, surprisingly (but actually not really), laughs, asks, "What are you trying to get at, Loki? Do you or don't you want me to be mad at you?"

Loki smiles wryly and drinks a bit of rum, shakes his head and says, "I'm going crazy, Tony. Don't mind me."

And then Tony grins like a kid in a candy store, making a show of pointing epically at Loki and announcing, "Ha! Didn't I tell you you were driving yourself insane? Isn't that what I said?" He chuckles and takes a drag from his cup, looking entirely too pleased with himself for such a desolate revelation as he adds, "I called it."

Loki weakly bats at Tony's shoulder and continues to nurse his drink, contradicting his earlier aversion to getting intoxicated. The idea of inebriation is suddenly much more appealing to him now that there's the illusion of being alone with Tony, never mind the fact that he can still hear music booming from downstairs and that he's lying in the middle of Steve Rogers' bed, which is possibly one of the weirdest situations he's ever found himself in (the irony of this will be much more apparent later on, trust me).

"Talk, Loki," Tony says after awhile, turning onto his side to face him. He drinks, asks, "What happened? Because something had to happen, otherwise you wouldn't have hated me a second ago."

Loki grimaces at his cup, not looking at Tony. "I didn't hate you…" he starts to say, but Tony cuts him off with a wet kiss on the cheek.

"Shut up about that," he demands, voice loud and blunt. Loki kind of wants to get sensitive and bitch again, but what good does that do? _Really?_

Instead of being an asshole, Loki takes in a large mouthful of alcohol, feeling a tiny buzz of it in his blood. _Now_ we're getting somewhere.

"Long version or short version?" he pauses in his drinking for a moment to ask, the bottom of his cup quickly becoming visible.

"Long," Tony drawls with a grin, laying his head against his pillow and saying, "I like it when you talk. You have a nice voice, did you know that?"

Loki smirks, pleased, and instructs Tony to, "Grab the booze, then."

Tony obliges and rolls onto his back, stretching his hand to the floor to retrieve the bottle of rum. When he returns to his previous position, he and Loki hastily refill their cups, both of them equally interested in going through the tale Loki has to tell. After taking a short sip of rum, Loki begins.

"So I get home at around eight-fifteen and Thor, Fandral, and Sif are tripping over themselves to get out of my house," he says, leaning back into his pillow and against Tony, "I ask them where they're going, and Thor's like '_Steve's party, it's going to be fucking awesome, you should come with us!_'. And so I, like the grand idiot I am, say yes…"

"You're not an idiot," Tony cuts in, pouting a bit.

"Can I finish?" Loki asks insolently, grinning with amusement when Tony makes a wounded face at him.

"But, no, no, no," Tony protests, maneuvering his arm around so that he's resting most of his weight on his elbow. Loki takes a careful drink (seeing as he's almost completely horizontal) as Tony points out, "If you hadn't said yes, I wouldn't have gotten to lie in Steve's bed and get drunk with you."

"Forgive me if I'm not leaping for joy at that," Loki replies, half-serious and half-joking, "That's actually extremely depressing to me."

Tony quirks his lips knowingly, sipping from his cup and musing, "I guess it would be." He grins impishly, goes on, "Even though you claim to not want me."

Loki hums with laughter and drinks, says, "That doesn't mean I can't be jealous."

"Aww, look!" Tony cries, smiling wider, "You_ do _care about me! That's sweet."

"Don't be so stupid, Tony," Loki rejoins, freeing a hand to pinch his friend's chin between his thumb and forefinger and forcing him to meet his eyes, "You know you matter the most to me. Stop being such a martyr." He pauses to take a sip of rum, then asks, "Now may I _please_ tell my story before I explode?"

Tony smirks, leans closer to briefly, playfully nuzzle Loki's nose, and replies, "_Suuure_."

Loki laughs quietly and pushes Tony's face away, only for the man to lay his head against his shoulder. He doesn't give a fuck, though (actually, he kind of enjoys it), so he continues.

"So I said yes," Loki says, "And they shove me into Thor's car. And I automatically know that it was a bad idea to go with them…"

"You should've come with me," Tony puts in, but Loki goes on as if he was never interrupted.

"… because Thor can't drive legally to save his life, and I'm fucking _terrified_ that he's going to get into another accident and I'll actually _die_ this time," he pauses to take a drink, choosing to disregard the small frown that appears on Tony's face, "We somehow make it to the party in one piece and people are spilling out of the house _like toothpaste_, already drunker than drunk."

"Drunk as a skunk," Tony repeats himself, laughing when Loki pokes hard at his stomach.

"_Shut up_, will you?" Loki chuckles, sipping from his cup again, "I'm trying to talk."

"Sorry, sorry," Tony hastily apologizes, burying his face in Loki's neck and kissing there. It's the most sensual, risky thing he's _ever_ tried on Loki; most of their kisses are restricted to the chin and above. If Loki was sober, he'd probably be freaking out about it, but since he's buzzing with alcohol and giddy with how close Tony is, he simply purrs and leans into the touch. Yeah, they're pretty bizarre.

"We go inside, and will you guess who throws her skanky self on Thor?" Loki asks, moving to glance at Tony.

Tony gives him a tight-lipped look and says, with the hint of a smirk, "I thought you wanted me to shut up."

Loki shoves him in response and they both burst into laughter, nearly dropping their cups on the bed. Damn, does it feel _good_ to actually find something funny and be in on the stupid, quite non-hilarious joke for once.

"Who?" Tony manages when their laughter subsides enough to allow for speech. He says this into his cup, so his voice sounds somewhat hollow, and he's blowing bubbles in his rum because he can't stop chuckling long enough to actually drink correctly.

"Emma Fucking Frost," Loki replies, disgust apparent in his voice. He takes a long drag from his cup as Tony curves an eyebrow at him.

"The White Witch?" Tony asks, grinning mischievously. Loki laughs sharply at the joke, thinking it much more humorous than it actually is in his inebriation (because honestly, the '_White Witch_' nickname is _so_ old and overused to the point where it really isn't that funny anymore; it's actually pretty redundant and annoying now).

"You mean the White _Bitch_?" Loki naughtily corrects, smiling when Tony throws his head back and outright cackles, his eyes crinkling perfectly at the corners, "Yeah, that one. She comes flying out of nowhere as soon as Thor walks in the house, and Wanda Maximoff and Natasha Romanoff are right after her, telling Thor about how '_Steve's in the kitchen, he was worried you wouldn't come, na-na-na_'…"

"I honestly think Steve would've cried if your bro didn't show up," Tony interjects, ignoring the unimpressed look Loki shoots him, "He was seriously freaking out, going on about how the party wouldn't be complete if Thor wasn't there and-"

"I don't give a fuck about Steve's boner for Thor, Tony," Loki snaps, taking a quick drink from his cup. His expression softens, though, when Tony's face grows dejected and just a tad sorrowful (Jesus Christ, can someone say something without offending everyone in the world tonight?), and he moves to kiss his friend in a largely successful attempt to lift Tony's mood once more (these are the moments when Loki is extremely thankful that Tony is desperately in love with him; his feelings are so very easy to take advantage of).

"Sorry; that was _awfully_ rude," he whispers against Tony's mouth, considering himself victorious when Tony sucks a brief, alcohol-laced kiss to his bottom lip.

"Nah, I get it," Tony replies, resting his crown against Loki's shoulder again, sipping from his cup, and requesting that he, "Go on."

"Okay," Loki says with a tiny smile and drinks some rum, "So Emma, Wanda, and Natasha are herding Thor into the kitchen and Fandral's got his fucking arm around me, which is extremely unpleasant, and when I look back, Sif's just _standing_ there in the doorway, throwing Thor the _nastiest_ look. I go and ask her if she's okay, and this bitch has the fucking nerve to _glare_ at me and walk away."

Tony hums as he takes a drink from his cup, nodding to show that he's listening.

"And I'm not a friendly person; I'm just not," Loki goes on, making ridiculous faces at the ceiling as he talks, "So it really fucking pisses me off that in the rare instance that I'm actually _not_ being a prissy bitch, she _glares_ at me and walks the fuck away."

"_That's_ why you're so angry?" Tony asks, a note of skepticism in his voice. He glances at Loki, dark eyes questioning.

Loki scoffs, slurps the remaining rum from his cup and replies, "That's probably the _least_ significant reason why I'm having a fit and getting drunk with you."

Tony quickly refills both of their Dixie cups as he muses, "So something happened after that."

Loki laughs bitterly and takes a long drink, saying, "Oh, _God_ yes."

"Talk, talk, talk," Tony demands, and Loki chuckles again, with humor this time, before he keeps going.

"She walks away, and Fandral grabs my hand and drags me in the kitchen after Thor and his sheepdogs," Loki continues, "We get in there, and Steve and Thor…" he pauses and _tsks_ quietly, pulling a thoughtful face, "I don't know how to describe it. It was like they were two bears fighting over a fish or something."

"Were they saying hello?" Tony asks, smirking like he knows _exactly_ what Loki's talking about.

"_Yes!_ They were saying hi to each other, but it was the most ridiculous display of welcome I've ever seen in my life!" Loki exclaims his agreement, his eyes growing wide and excited as he does. Tony starts to laugh at the man's enthusiasm, and Loki grins into his drink when his friend goes on nuzzling and kissing at his neck again, laying an arm across his stomach for support.

"Tony, stop. I won't be able to talk," Loki says as he sips his rum.

"But you're so cute when you get excited like that," Tony whines quietly, his voice muffled against Loki's throat. Loki can feel his friend smile into his skin.

"You can appreciate how very _adorable_ I am without being a total vampire," he says, shifting a bit to fix Tony with a mock-serious look.

Tony scowls at him for a moment before bringing his cup to his lips, drinking his rum with a soft grumble of assent. He remains squished against Loki's side, though, defiantly pressing his forehead into the man's pale neck like it'll actually get on Loki's nerves (yeah, _right_).

"Where was I?" Loki wonders aloud after a moment of thought, his jade eyes whipping about the room as he struggles to remember where his story left off.

"Thor and Steve were fighting over a fish?" Tony tries with a chuckle, grinning when Loki makes a scrunched face at him.

"So they took a thousand and eight years to say _hello_, and uhm…" Loki pauses, contemplating briefly before deciding to reroute his tale just slightly, "We walked in the kitchen, and before Steve and Thor started screaming at each other, Steve was talking with this girl, and I didn't know whether or not she was Jean Grey…"

"Was she?" Tony asks suddenly, watching Loki with alert eyes and _oh my fucking God_, he is the most horrible listener in the history of the world, is he not?

"I'm _getting _there," Loki groans, reaching a hand down to grab Tony's and squeeze it, "Be patient, _God_."

Tony goes silent and drinks obediently, grasping Loki's hand back just as tightly.

"_So_, Steve and Thor are talking, and Steve is telling Thor about how he was so worried he wouldn't come," Loki goes on, "Thor tells him that we were running late, and Fandral decides to be the rudest person _ever_ and say something like '_oh, no thanks to you and Sif, dur-hur!_'" Tony laughs at the theatrical interjection, "Thor looks at him, and here's what he says…" Loki pauses for dramatic effect (but actually just to sip his rum), "He says, '_Don't get pissy when I've gotten you a date, you're the one who wanted to wait_', or something like that."

"That rhymed," Tony remarks with a smirk before asking, "Date?" in an incredulous tone, wrinkling his nose to indicate his confusion.

"Yes. A _date_," Loki clarifies, rolling his eyes and feeling a trace of resentment creep up inside him at the memory.

"What, was he–" Tony starts to say, but promptly covers his mouth with his Dixie cup when Loki squeezes the_ fuck_ out of his hand. Loki grins a bit, glad to have found a way to shut Tony up.

"Thor said that, and I'm sitting there freaking out and thinking, '_Was he talking about me? About _me_?_'" Loki continues his story, resting his cup on his chest and gazing vacantly at the ceiling, "And then Steve says hi to me, and I'm not going to be rude and ignore him, so I go and say hi back and shake his hand and whatever. The woman Steve was talking with asks me if I'm Thor's brother, and it turns out that she _is_ Jean Grey…"

"You met Jean?" Tony blurts, raising his head to beam childishly at Loki.

Loki sighs quietly and drinks a mouthful of rum with deliberate slowness, watching Tony twitch a bit with impatience. When he pulls his cup away from his lips, he carefully swipes his tongue over his teeth, biting the inside of his cheek out of habit and for the sake of consuming time. Being a tease is always fun, especially with Tony.

"_Yes_, I met Jean," Loki exhales when he finally decides to speak, and a smile tugs at his lips when Tony's own grin grows at the answer.

"She's amazing, isn't she?" Tony asks, taking a quick sip from his cup before going on in that throaty, constricted voice you get after drinking something, "And beautiful, too."

"Yes, yes, she's delightful," Loki replies with a bit more spite than is really necessary, quirking his brow and pursing his lips a bit at Tony. It's nothing against Jean; he just wants to finish his goddamn story. But Tony takes his snippiness for the exact opposite.

"You don't like her," he assumes with a tiny frown, which only deepens when Loki chuckles at the foolish postulation.

"No, Tony!" Loki laughs, shaking his head a bit, "I think she's wonderful." He tilts his head accusingly at his friend, turning his eyes up to look condescending and irritated as he says, "It's _you_ that I have a problem with."

Tony smiles modestly and returns his head to Loki's shoulder, mumbling, "I'm sorry, Loki."

Loki leans his head against Tony's and _hmms_ his acceptance, softly requesting, "Just listen, okay? Can you please do that? Because if I don't get to tell you the worst part before I'm too drunk to take it seriously, I'm going to be really upset."

Tony nods and swiftly empties his cup of rum, chucking it to the foot of the bed before totally adhering to Loki's side and winding his arm around the man's middle. "Promise," he whispers, deeply and intimately enough to make Loki shiver and remind him how intoxicated the both of them are, how Tony's never said anything to him like _that_, with _that _voice that could melt his skin off.

"So, uhm," Loki starts, stammering a bit because _fuck_, it's like Tony's voice threw his already-jumbled mind in a whirl, "Uhm, I tell Jean that _yes_, I'm Thor's brother, and it's the start of what could be a really good conversation, when Emma _Fucking_ Frost…" Tony laughs quietly, "… asks me '_Aren't you going out with Tony Stark?_'"

Loki mimics Emma's tone as repeats her words, pausing to take a drink. He purposefully takes his time and cleans his cup out, almost waiting for Tony to say something despite the fact that he promised he wouldn't interrupt anymore.

Well, it wouldn't be interrupting if Loki wasn't talking, would it?

Tony elevates his head again, watching Loki carefully as if asking for permission to say something. When Loki nods a bit, finishing off his rum and throwing his cup to the side, Tony speaks.

"Did you say yes?" he asks in a muted voice, raising his eyebrows and angling his head towards Loki. It sounds like a trick question, and it kind of is but at the same time isn't; Loki knows that. He knows that Tony's really saying, _Are we going out? Are we a thing, even if we don't say we are and even if you're stubborn as hell and even though we're just drunk?_ without actually voicing those words.

"My answer wasn't the truth," Loki throws back, observing the way Tony narrows his eyes a bit, sucks at his teeth.

"What did you say?" Tony questions, barely letting his voice or face belie anything. That's another thing Tony does when he's intoxicated, but only sometimes. Mostly, he's blunt and rude and obnoxious and up front, which can be both a positive and negative thing. Occasionally, he'll do what he's doing now and shut down all visible emotion, which is even harder to deal with than his audacious honesty. Loki really hates it when this happens; it's usually when Tony's in android-mode that he ends up getting unpredictably pissed or loving or upset or hyper with him.

"I said, '_Does it really fucking matter?_'" Loki replies, absently stretching his spine and feeling the vertebrae pop pleasantly. Tony blinks, scans his face, and _goddammit_, why did they have to get drunk to have this conversation? Like, really?

"So you're saying it does?" Tony eventually asks, some of the emotion (confusion, hope) bleeding back into his expression. Loki sighs in casual relief, which Tony must think is irritation, because he scowls until Loki rolls leisurely onto his side and curls into him, leaning their foreheads together.

"I'm _saying_ it shouldn't to her," Loki answers carefully, holding Tony's eyes, "She shouldn't give a fuck. It's not her business what we do together. What matters to her _shouldn't_ _be_ what matters to me and how it matters to me, which is you, and more than anything."

It's a miracle he said that without screwing up or confusing himself; Lord knows he's drunk enough to do it.

Before Tony can start jumping for joy or asking more questions, Loki kisses him briefly, says, "You're my best friend, however difficult that is to believe with the shit we get ourselves into. Trust me; I'll tell you the moment we start being more than that, okay?"

Tony watches him silently, a lot like he did in the library awhile ago. He has this weird, beautiful, horrible combination of melancholy and wonder on his face, like a part of him can't believe what he's hearing while another is elated with the words Loki's saying to him.

"Trust me," Loki quietly prompts once more, blood buzzing.

Then Tony makes a soft noise of acquiescence, closes his eyes and says, "Keep going, Loki."

Loki is more than happy to oblige.

"I said that, and then Steve asks Thor where Sif is, because she's definitely _not_ in the kitchen," he continues, closing his eyes as well and letting himself get comfortable leaning against Tony, "Thor looks around and, uhm… and realizes that she's not there. He's just like '_Oh, I don't know , she was just right behind us_', and then Emma decides to crank up her bitchiness to level eight and go '_Oh my God, you came with Sif?_', like Sif's so horrible. Thor sort of but not really stands up for her, Steve makes an announcement about how much he wants to dance, and everybody but Fandral and I rushes out of the kitchen like the purple monkeys in _Horton Hears a Who!_."

Tony chuckles amusedly at the comparison, and Loki is secretly immensely soothed. He didn't want this whole situation to become more depressing than it already was.

"So I'm standing in the kitchen with Fandral, which is absolutely horrible and terrifying and strange and _ugh_," Loki says, bringing a hand up to rub at his nose and accidentally hitting Tony's on the way, "He comes up to me and asks, '_Don't you want to dance?_'" Loki sniffs and briefly bites his lip. "And I'm not going to bullshit or beat around the bush, so I ask him about what the fuck Thor meant. He decides to _play dumb_ and ask me what I mean, but, you know me," Tony makes a noise of acknowledgement as Loki goes on, "I'm not going to let him get away with that. Eventually he tells me that Thor _was_ talking about me, and that… that I was set up."

Loki pauses to breathe for a moment, noticing how it's suddenly a degree more difficult to accomplish that simple, involuntary task. He's getting upset again; not to say that he ever stopped being so, but the feelings of betrayal and helplessness and _wrongness_ are all the more prominent in his mind and his heart as he goes on telling his story. It feels like Loki's growing farther and farther away from Tony and Steve's bedroom, moving closer to the kitchen and that awful moment with Fandral.

"I-I get really angry with him, and he's begging me to calm down, but I just _can't_," Loki continues, squeezing his eyes more firmly shut against the wave of emotion that hits him, "And… I make it clear to Fandral that I'm not very pleased it was _him_, and he asks me what's wrong with him; as in, of all people, why is he so horrible? And I do the stupidest thing…" he stops talking for a long moment, only continuing when Tony starts to say his name, questioning.

"I _laugh_ at him," Loki blurts, cutting Tony off somewhat unintentionally, "I laugh at him, and he gets _so_ upset, and then…" he swallows thickly, "… and then he grabs me and traps me against the counter, and he kisses me."

There's a long moment of scary silence after Loki says this, and all he can hear is how Tony's breathing gets quiet and rapid. He refuses to open his eyes simply because he feels like he'll explode if he does before he manages to calm down, and he's sort of-kind of hyperventilating now, freaking out and tensing up and _what is happening to him?_ (It's starting to become plausible to believe that Loki is developing some sort of stress and/or panic disorder, because this _really_ doesn't make that much sense, and it's kind of terrifying him how easy it is to start outright _losing _it now.)

Fuck relaxing, though, because Loki's emerald eyes go flying open as soon as he feels Tony's presence leave him. His head snaps up as he watches Tony swing his legs over the side of the bed, already trying to bolt for the door with a visible, fiery-hot tension in the line of his body. And it's completely obvious what the man's going to do as soon as he's out of the room, and that's _murder_, to put it lightly. Shit, shit, shit, shit_shit__**shit**_.

"Tony, no!" Loki exclaims, dragging himself across the mattress to fling his arms around said man's waist just as he gets up. Tony barely halts in his jerky, swift movements when Loki does this, and he nearly ends up dragging his thinner, weaker friend all the way off of the bed and onto the floor. That actually would've been _hilarious_ and much more effective in stopping him from decapitating and castrating Fandral, but also more harmful to Loki, who's already wounded enough emotionally.

Tony makes an aggravated noise, firmly grasping Loki's wiry arms and attempting to pry them apart, which only causes Loki to tighten his embrace, the stubborn asshole.

"Let me _go_, Loki," Tony growls, squirming helplessly in his friend's grip. Loki's whole upper body is hanging awkwardly over the edge of the mattress, and the side of his face is squished somewhat uncomfortably against the base of Tony's back.

"Stay," he pleads, hiccupping softly (shit, here they come; almost _every_ time Loki gets drunk, he starts to hiccup after awhile), "You don't _have_ to do anything."

Tony scoffs, trying to glare over his shoulder at Loki, but he can probably only see the man's back from his position. "Don't have to _do _anything?" he asks incredulously, irritation and fury thick in his voice as he does, "What the fuck are you talking about? He _kissed_ you without your permission."

"I never said that," Loki points out lowly, even though Tony's right. Why he says something so stupid and foolish is beyond him; it's probably because he's intoxicated. He hiccups again.

Tony's eyes widen, and he does a one-hundred and eighty degree turn in Loki's arms (which is the _funniest_ thing of all time, because then Loki's just hanging onto his waist and he starts resting his chin against the man's belly button, and can you _imagine_ the epic innuendo that could be associated with that pose?). He glares down at his friend who stares innocently, piteously up at him with his round, pretty eyes.

"Did you _want_ him to kiss you?" Tony asks in a quiet, disbelieving voice, like he's mindless enough to think that the answer might be _yes_ (just because you're drunk doesn't mean you have to be a dumbass, Tony).

Loki stifles a laugh, replies, "Of course not, but don't just up and assume something I haven't said."'

Tony scowls, his brows coming together as Loki continues to gaze at him, hiccupping. "Loki, let me go," he orders, clutching the man's arms again. Loki tightens his grip once more.

"_No_, Tony," he retorts, frowning slightly, "Hurting him wouldn't do anything."

Tony smirks bitterly, snorts, "Hurt him? I'm gonna fucking _destroy _him. I'll rip his fuckin–"

"_You're not my boyfriend!_" Loki cuts Tony off, his tone unpleasantly whiny and sharp. He can feel himself slowly slipping off of the bed (no thanks to the blanket covering it), and he digs his feet into the mattress as he adds, "You don't have to protect my honor, so don't try to."

Tony's expression melts into one of brooding at his words. He moves one hand to brush a dark lock of hair out of Loki's face, argues, "But he hurt your feelings." Loki senses a note of impending defeat in his friend's tone; _fuck yes_ being a boss is _awesome_.

Loki smiles gently and hiccups cutely (he felt the spasm coming and shot a gallon of deliberate charm into it, because he can be a manipulative bitch when he needs to), replying, "And I'm asking you to make them better by _staying _here and letting him die of AIDS or syphilis or something."

Tony goes silent, watching his face, and Loki would be absolutely fine with this situation if he wasn't moments from sliding off of the bed.

"Tony, I'm about to fall on the floor," he says with deceptive calmness, breaking into laughter when Tony grins and hooks an arm under his body, swiftly sliding him back onto the mattress. Whew.

* * *

So they passed the next hour or so in Steve's room, completely emptying the bottle of rum and generally being drunken fools the whole time. They listened to Steve's music (the good of it that they could find) and danced, talked about how Sif was probably jealous and Fandral was probably guilty (Loki had something of a hard time believing this at first) and Thor was probably the most horrible brother on the face of the planet. Laughter was frequent, as was smiling, but even through all the alcohol and intoxication, Loki was still upset somewhere inside him, like there was a second heart in his body that pumped the occasional negative through his bloodstream. Of course, Tony was there to be an amazing painkiller, but he was no surgeon and did no permanent removal of this additional organ mutated out of pain.

After Steve's room grew boring and Loki threatened to fall asleep, Tony dragged him up onto the roof, where they sat Indian-style and watched the party rage on in the backyard, still going strong at eleven-thirty at night.

"I was kind of hoping you'd drive me home," Loki murmurs, breaking the long, comfortable silence that had persisted for about five minutes between them. He leans against Tony and enjoys the corporeal sensation of a zephyr breezing through the air, blowing against his face and through his hair and on his arms and making him feel alive.

Tony laughs quietly, sliding a pack of Marlboros and a lighter decorated with red and gold stripes out of his jacket pocket. He sticks a cigarette between his teeth, replies around it, "Now? _No_. It's only eleven-thirty." Tony lights his cigarette as he glances at Loki, who lowers his head.

"Only eleven-thirty," Loki repeats with a trace of bitterness. He yawns softly and leans more into Tony, ignoring the way the smell of tobacco makes him want to cringe away. Tony briefly puffs at his cigarette before plucking it from his lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke, and resting his hand against his knee.

"Plus, I'm crazy drunk, babe," he adds with a small chuckle, more smoke escaping almost beautifully from between his lips when he does, "Driving under the influence is illegal."

Loki snorts and coughs softly, feeling goosebumps rising on his arms as he replies, "That hasn't stopped you from doing it before." And it's true; Tony has done more drunk-driving than could be considered _normal_ or _average_ for a person valuing their life and their image. He hasn't even gotten caught yet, the lucky bastard.

"_Yeah_, but I split a whole bottle of rum with you and then some," Tony laughs, flicking his cigarette ashes onto the roof beneath him, "That ain't very promisin'."

"Whatever," Loki drawls, moving to stretch his back and yawning again, wider this time, "I'm tired, and I'd really like to just go home and cry forever and ever."

Now, take a moment to think about what Loki has done ever since he's arrived here. He's gotten himself betrayed by his brother and violated by Fandral, he's had to resist the urge to jump on Steve and/or Emma and just start caving their faces in, he's holed up in Steve's _bedroom _with _Tony_, gotten terribly drunk when he convinced himself he wouldn't, had mood swings for a straight hour and a half (and still going), and now he's sitting on the roof of _Steve Rogers' _house, watching the student body of Elysian University make complete, perfect fools of themselves. Worst party _ever_, and Loki hasn't even done any actual partying. How about that?

"_Loki_," Tony whines, bringing his cigarette to his lips for a moment before turning to his friend, scowling, "Aren't_ I_ here? Don't I make everything better?"

And that makes Loki sad, because he knows how badly Tony wants to do that. He _does _do that, to an extent, but you can't cure bipolar disorder, can you? And even though broken hearts _are_ fixable, they usually take time to repair, and Loki's already made it clear that it's impossible for Tony to mend glass (his heart) that Thor's broken, to salvage a horrible painting (again, his heart) that Thor has started. If he did, Loki would end up a Frankenstein, missing all the right pieces that would make him truly whole.

In short, Tony's a huge part of him, and he's _there_, perfectly in place. Thor just needs to follow his example and find where he fits into the puzzle.

"Tony, _hush_," Loki whispers, leaning over to kiss his friend, ever the Machiavelli. They've been doing that all night, kissing each other. Loki still hasn't changed his mind, though, despite how much Tony's been hoping their necking would have caused him to.

Tony hums quietly, and Loki tastes bitter tobacco and sweet alcohol on his lips. It's weird how it both repulses and intrigues him, draws him in. Tony must notice, because he grins, asks him, "You wanna try it?" and holds up his cigarette. Loki makes a face at the cancer stick.

"It's unhealthy," he argues, glancing to the side for a moment when he hears a shrill, lengthy scream from the ground. Loki watches as Clint Barton pours a bucket of ice water all over Betty Ross, laughing obnoxiously the whole time. Bruce Banner, her boyfriend, isn't looking too pleased with his fellow footballer.

Tony snorts incredulously, catching Loki's attention again. He's smirking as he retorts, "_I'm _unhealthy. You sure do like me, now don't you?"

Loki rolls his eyes and snatches the cigarette from Tony's fingers, watching a bit irritably as his friend's smirk turns into a full-blown grin at the action. He examines the small white stick in his grip like it's something fascinating and unknown, asking, "How do I do it?"

Tony pulls a bewildered face that is probably the funniest thing Loki's ever seen (it just looks that way because he's _wasted_). "What do you mean, '_how do I do it'_?" Tony questions skeptically.

"Well, I don't want to start choking and _die_," Loki huffs, absently flicking the cigarette and watching the ashes fall to the roof.

Tony makes an expression that obviously says _Ooohhhh_, moving to sit at an angle to Loki. He props his elbows on his knees and rests his chin in his hands, instructing, "You put it in your mouth and let the smoke collect for a few seconds, and then slowly inhale till your lungs are full. Then you just breathe out," he stops and grins, "Easy?"

Loki nods a bit, still inspecting the cigarette. He's a little scared, he'll admit, but it's only a one-time thing, right? Plus, he's in college. He's allowed to be a little stupid.

"It's okay to cough," Tony adds, scratching his temple, "That happens."

Loki doesn't reply, instead placing the cigarette between his lips. The end is damp with Tony's spit, and Loki lids his eyes as he follows his friend's directions and inhales slowly. Smoke tickles at the back of his throat just shy of uncomfortably. As his lungs expand, he starts to feel dizzy and lightheaded, like the fumes he's taking in are pushing everything in his head to the side to make room for themselves. Tony is watching him intently, completely transfixed.

And then Loki jerks the cigarette from his mouth, exhaling a large puff of smoke and coughing a bit. The itch in his throat relieves some as Loki sways slightly, holding the cancer stick in his hand away from him and waiting for Tony to take it back. But Tony's still gazing at him, blinking rarely.

"What?" Loki asks curtly, observing the fumes still fleeing his mouth. Tony smiles, chuckles dumbly.

"That was… extremely attractive," Tony replies, leaning forward to kiss Loki again. Loki lets him, experimentally breathes smoke between Tony's lips and grins when his friend groans softly, pleasantly at the gesture.

"When you finally admit your undying love for me, can we shotgun like that more often?" Tony teases, grabbing his cigarette from Loki and sticking it back in his mouth. He looks like he's getting off on the saliva Loki left on the butt of the stick, and knowing Tony, he probably is.

"_No_," Loki answers promptly, shivering at the chilliness in the air, "Because even _if_ I ever lose my mind and go out with you, I'm not smoking again."

Tony pouts around his cigarette and removes it, exhaling smoke in a way that's impossibly elegant (Loki kind of envies him) and debating/flirting, "But that was so _sexy_. You'd be a hot smoker."

"You mean a hot cancer patient?" Loki retorts, raising an eyebrow and smirking a bit as he shudders again, "Yeah, I guess so."

Tony watches him thoughtfully for a moment before noting, "You're cold."

Well, _no shit_, Tony. Thanks for noticing. (Just kidding; we love him.)

"You know what? I _completely_ agree with you," Loki sarcastically counters, nodding with exaggerated approval and narrowing his eyes to the snottiest degree. Tony grins, immediately putting his cigarette in his mouth and shrugging off his leather jacket.

"Here," he says around his cigarette butt, tossing the heavy article of clothing into Loki's lap. Loki palms the worn black fabric as an angry, cursing cry rings from the backyard. Tony glances over the edge of the roof and laughs at whatever he sees, removing his cigarette and whistling a thin stream of smoke.

"Bruce's fucking _giving it _to Clint, man," he chuckles, crossing his arms and watching the alleged fight taking place. Loki's not really paying attention, though; he keeps looking between the thin Harley-Davidson t-shirt Tony's wearing and the leather jacket in his lap.

"Tony, you're wearing less than me," Loki points out, gesturing to the dark flannel shirt he's donning.

"Hm?" Tony says distractedly, glancing up to look at Loki. He quickly realizes what his friend said, though, and shrugs flippantly, shaking his head. "S'fine, man," he reassures, "I don't mind."

That doesn't stop Loki from feeling like a bitch.

Sighing softly, Loki moves to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Tony. He slides the man's jacket around his shoulders, not putting his arms into the sleeves, and rests (albeit sleepily) against Tony once more to share body warmth, or something. He doesn't want Tony to freeze to death (which is fucking _crazy_, because it's September) while he sits around, pampered as can be. No. Just, no.

Almost as if to say _thanks_, Tony leans into Loki, idly puffing at his cigarette. The two sit silently and watch Bruce and Clint attack each other; the former has Clint in a half nelson, using one of his arms to hold the man in place while he punches the _shit_ out of his face with his free hand (Bruce tends to get really fucking violent when he's pissed, and a number of people have learned that the hard way when they'd mistaken his scholarly disposition for weakness, never mind that he's on the football team). Clint is screaming and cussing horribly, but the sound is probably more for the sake of making noise than out of pain. People begin to circle around the brawl, loudly cheering the two competitors on with chanting and fist-pumping.

"Why do they encourage the violence?" Loki asks offhandedly, honestly at a loss for comprehension. Tony gets shit like this better than he does, what with his stronger social standing.

"Because it's funny," Tony automatically answers, smoke rushing from his lips as he does. His eyes stay glued to the fight going on in the backyard when Loki looks up at him, face skeptical.

"_Funny_?" Loki questions, his eyes thinning, "What the fuck about watching a human being experiencing pain at the hands of another is _funny_?"

Tony glances at Loki when he says that, and his expression softens a bit when he sees the genuine distress on his friend's face.

"Well… _funny_ is probably the wrong word for it," he amends, bringing his cigarette to his lips for a moment to inhale. Tony pants a gust of acrid smoke, goes on, "_Entertaining_ would be more accurate."

Loki scowls, watching Tony smoke and continue to survey the nonsense taking place below them. It doesn't add up at all to him, and truthfully? He's just a little depressed with the fact that Tony can find amusement in watching his friends fight, even if they are drunk, even if they don't mean it, and even if they'll wake up tomorrow and laugh about it.

"I don't understand, Tony," Loki says, his voice tired and light, "Why is it entertaining?"

Tony looks at him again, and the way his expression goes through a series of changes lets Loki know that sometimes his friend has to remind himself that Loki's _different_ from everyone else, that he thinks and feels and wants in a whole new, unusual way.

"It's like an action movie or a comic book," Tony eventually replies, "People are drawn to that kinda stuff. I guess it's just human nature to seek out violence or something."

Loki makes a muted noise and turns his head to bury his face in Tony's shoulder, mumbling, "Humans are stupid."

Tony laughs and catches Loki under his chin with his hand, and Loki doesn't even stop himself from chuckling when his friend kisses him for the millionth time, says, "That's not true. You're just insanely wonderful and smart compared to the rest of us."

Loki shakes his head and moves to lay across Tony's lap, faint and feeble with fatigue and intoxication. He peers over the edge of the roof and observes the fight, still carrying on, as he murmurs, "Stop, Tony. I don't like it when you flatter me like _that_."

Because he doesn't. It's that sort of customary complimenting shit that friends do with each other that Loki absolutely despises. It's too common, too much like a tradition or a convention. He enjoys Tony cooing over him, don't get me wrong, but stuff that sounds like you'd find it on a greeting card or hear it in a movie bothers the living fuck out of him, because it sounds empty and weak. That's why Loki likes it when Frigga calls him _chameleon_, but hates it when she addresses him as _sweetie pie_; why he loves Tony telling him he's a hot smoker, but loathes the man comparing him to humanity. It's an individuality thing.

"_Sorry_," Tony keens, indolently playing with Loki's dark, silky hair and smoking his cigarette, "Don't fall asleep, pretty thing."

Loki laughs quietly and replies, "Wish me luck." He actually feels like if he blinks too long, he'll go plummeting helplessly into unconsciousness; that's how fucking tired he is. Gosh, Tony, just take him home already.

The fight between Bruce and Clint eventually dispels, but not because they're being pulled apart or have reached a truce. Things just don't work that way in this horrible, cruel world where everyone relentlessly hates each other.

The reason why the two Elysian Lions momentarily quit their brawling is because everybody at the party suddenly has their undivided attention on Anna Marie Darkhölme (more commonly known as just Marie) and Remy LeBeau (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). The two had previously just been chilling out and minding their own damn business on the trampoline before suddenly, everyone in the near vicinity was practically screaming at them, pointing their fingers and laughing at… at what?

"What happened?" Loki asks, bewildered, as he sits up, squinting his eyes in an attempt to see better. Where people had been clustering around Bruce and Clint before, they're now crowding over to the trampoline, trapping Marie and Remy on it when they make a human wall surrounding it.

Tony frowns and leans over, trying to see as well. He carelessly flicks his cigarette butt over the edge of the roof, replying, "I have no fucking idea. I thought everyone was watching Clint an–"

"Me too," Loki cuts him off, ignoring when Tony glowers a bit at him. He's struggling to distinguish something, to catch a word or two amongst all the yelling, but all he hears is raucous laughter and ugly noise. And then Loki sees Thor and almost starts sobbing uncontrollably (he's tired and emotional; can you blame him?).

Thor and Steve are unceremoniously shoving their way through the throng of people towards the trampoline, with Emma and (oh my _God_, Loki _will_ cry before the night is over) Fandral (_Fandral_) following behind them. It's a little humorous to watch their journey from an aerial view, because it's like the people are a bunch of cornstalks in a field and Steve, Thor, and their train (ha, their _train_) are tractors cutting them down. As soon as the group reaches the trampoline, Steve bends over the edge of it and slaps his hands down on the canvas, shouting loud enough for Loki to hear, "Hey, guys!"

It's not friendly, the way he says it. You know that deliberately nice, sugar-coated voice people use when they're being supercilious, perfect assholes? That's the one Steve used.

Now, let me digress just a little bit to talk about Marie and Remy. Marie is, to be brutally honest, a hard-addicted stoner and one of the toughest girls you'll ever meet, and she's only fierce because she's vulnerable, if that makes any sense. She has merely a few select friends, and honestly, Loki only knows who she is because he'll occasionally overhear people gossiping about her in his anthropology class. She has a major in anatomy and physiology and a minor in biology, and Loki has heard someone mention that her parents are forcing her into a career in sports medicine, but all she wants is to become a traveling musician or a rockstar or something else unreliable and creative.

Remy is different. Remy is one of the biggest flirts at the university, and not in the nasty, almost-rapist kind of way (uhm, _Fandral_). He has a visual impairment that makes his eyes super-sensitive to light, so he's always wearing these iconic Ray-Ban sunglasses for protection, even when it's dark out (like right now). Loki sees him in the library a whole lot and has even helped him find a book before, so he's more familiar with Remy, but still a relative stranger. He knows that Remy isn't satisfied with anything simply by looking at him. He also knows that Remy wants to go home and stay there more than anything.

(What I'm trying to say is: Marie is an outcast and Remy is welcomed by most of the student body. Makes sense?)

That has a little bit to do with why Loki feels a twinge of anger when he hears Steve's horribly sarcastic, "Hey, guys!" Because he knows what it feels like to disagree with your parents, to want to be something ridiculous and free, to be frustrated and discontent with life, to want to go home. Not to mention the fact that Thor and Steve are probably about to be the biggest fucking douchebags _ever_.

Loki watches Marie crawl to the edge of the trampoline to get in Steve's face, and he sees her lips moving, but can't hear what she's saying. Steve and Thor start to laugh really loud and obnoxiously in response to whatever she told them, and soon after, everybody around them is cracking the hell up and _jeeze_, people can be fucking horrible.

"That's Remy, isn't it?" Tony asks suddenly, and Loki almost jumps and screams, having momentarily forgotten about his friend (which is a little stupid, since they're brushing sides).

"Yeah, that's him," Loki replies, noting the way Tony is shivering just slightly from the cold. Quickly, because he really doesn't want to miss anything, he moves behind Tony and wraps his arms around him, peering over his shoulder to see the ground.

Steve says something and the crowd goes silent, but not soon enough for Loki to hear the man's words. Marie responds quietly, and Loki thinks she's saying, "Why does it matter to you?", but he can't be sure.

"So _you are_?" Thor blurts out, and Emma giggles at his rear. It's when Steve and Thor exchange arrogant, grinning expressions, when Marie lowers her head in the face of her challengers' spiteful laughter, that Loki realizes just what's so funny to everyone.

Anna Marie Darkhölme and Remy LeBeau are an item, and everybody thinks it _hilarious _that a prince fell in love with a pauper. Stories like Charles and Diana's don't exist in the world of college; here, you stick with those of your own "class" or suffer the consequences.

And here is where we began our lovely story.

Loki glances at Tony, who is watching the scene with a conflicted expression. That really pisses Loki off, to be honest, because he knows that Tony's not letting himself be truly affected by the events taking place in the backyard for _Steve's _sake. Steve can do no wrong and Steve is so perfect and so right and so justified and so _everything_ to Tony, and the fact fills Loki up with so much poison and resentment that he can't stand it. He knows that if _he _ever did some of the things Steve pulled off, he'd be disappointed with Tony for _not_ getting angry with him. Honest to God.

"Remy, why her, man?" Thor asks in a booming voice, filled with mirth and malice.

"Yeah, why her?" Steve adds, bumping Thor's shoulder with a chuckle. He's looking straight at Marie as he says this and _damn_, that's about as cruel as you can get.

Remy moves to kneel beside Marie, a scowl apparent on his face. Loki makes out, "… shouldn't… to you… your business." When he mentally fills in the blanks, he imagines that Remy said, "It shouldn't matter to you; it's not your business."

And then Steve says the most _terrible_ thing in response to that. Just, honestly. Loki knew the man could be a total dick, but this was beyond anything he'd ever expected to hear coming out of his mouth.

"Of course it's our _business_. Everything's our business," Steve laughs. He _laughs_, like it's something humorous, something pleasant, something _accepted_.

The thing is that he says this with such _prerogative_, as if because he and Thor are so well-known and liked (feared) by most of the students at EU, they automatically deserve to know everything about everybody, and they're automatically allowed to walk all over lesser beings, and they automatically have permission to tell someone who they are and what they need to do. Just because of their positions at the top of the social ladder, they're entitled to act like gods. _This _is what he's saying, and Loki _loathes_ him and Thor for it. Thor especially.

Tearing Tony's jacket off, Loki rips away from his friend and bolts for the hatch leading back into the house, stumbling with how drunk (the alcohol in his system is actually starting to wear off) and sleepy he is. Tony calls his name, but Loki doesn't give a fuck; not one. He just needs to get to Thor.

Loki almost falls as he rushes down the stairs, and thank _God _he didn't (if he did, he'd probably have had a nervous breakdown right there in the middle of the floor before he bled to death). Ignoring Tony's scrambling and yelling after him, begging him to stop, he crosses the living room (which is a lot more vacant than it was before) and hurries outside. Unfortunately, there's a wall about a thousand feet-thick and composed entirely of laughing, intoxicated human bodies that separates him from Thor. _Motherfucker_.

Willing himself to be strong (he has to do that a lot these days), Loki starts forcing himself into the crowd, rudely shoving people out of his way and not caring when they glare or curse at him. Here comes that violated, helpless feeling again, gushing its way up inside him every time he touches one more person or gets bumped to the side. About halfway through the mob, Loki starts calling for Thor, hollering his older brother's name as loud as he can.

It's a smart decision, because people start moving out of his way a lot easier when he's in pursuit of their idol. He knows that they only do it because they all want a spectacle, because everyone wants to see what he has to say to _the mighty_ _Thor_.

Finally, Loki's hand lands on Thor's shoulder, and he yanks his brother back to face him. He's painfully aware that he's standing right next to Fandral, whose whole universe is suddenly fixated on him now that he's there.

"Loki?" Thor asks, and he has uncharacteristic shock and what almost looks like relief written all over his face. He staggers back from the force in which his brother pulled at him, questioning, "What's wrong?"

Loki outright _glares_ at Thor (this one is probably a subzero, level ten stare of _death_), says in a hard, frozen voice, "Leave them the fuck alone. They didn't do anything to you."

A few people laugh behind him, and Loki reins in the urge to round on them and start fucking screaming. Thor looks confused for a moment; again, like it's surprising that Loki has the gall to defy him or something, and he grins with just a hint of tension. Steve turns to slide his oily self into the situation as Thor chuckles, "What?"

Loki raises an eyebrow just a bit, intimidating, coldly replies, "_I said_, leave them. The _fuck_. _Alone_. You don't have _the right_ to tell them what to do and who to do it with."

Nobody laughs this time, and Thor and Steve give Loki equal looks of bemusement. Remy and Marie are peering confusedly at him from behind the two huge jocks, and Loki feels a stitch of angst at the fact that they can't believe he's standing up for them, that _no one_ can believe he's talking back to Thor Skywalker (even though they're brothers, that's still totally scandalous).

Eventually, Thor snorts a bit, flippantly shaking his head and moving to stand closer to his brother. There he goes, doing that predator thing again and getting into Loki's space to threaten him.

"You're drunk, brother…" Thor starts to say, but Loki abruptly cuts him off.

"Does that mean my words aren't fucking justified?" Loki snaps, his previously glacial expression molding into something irate and hard, "We're all _drunk_, and that means that their feelings don't matter?"

Tony suddenly rams Fandral to the side, moving to stand next to Loki. He doesn't dare say anything when his friend fixes him with poisonous emerald eyes, though, because he really _does_ value his life.

Thor's face takes on a shade of wrath as Steve strolls forward, cool and slick. Loki actually _cannot_ believe that this man is going to defend himself for _humiliating_ two faultless sophomores in front of the rest of the student body.

But, oh! He does believe it, because that's why everybody loves Steve Rogers; he's charismatic enough to protect his own seamless image and perfect enough to do it flawlessly. That's right.

"Listen, Loki, it's no big deal," Steve laughs with a grin, smiling easy and persuasive (and what sucks about this is that he doesn't even _know_ Loki, not really). It's enough to make a couple of students in the crowd hum their agreement, and did you know that the world sometimes _begs_ for Loki to hate it? It really does.

"_No big deal?_" Loki echoes skeptically, and his face conveys the utmost _disgust_ at Steve's words. It has Steve faltering for a moment (And seriously, what the fuck? Loki wanted to talk to _Thor_, my fucking _God_.) before he's all smiles and shrugs again, maintaining his perfectly smooth front. Loki wonders if he's actually _reaching_ Steve; if what he's saying makes an impression on the man even if he doesn't show it, or if Steve is really as shallow as Loki thinks he is.

"No. They're just–" Steve starts to respond, but he doesn't finish. Loki knows what he was going to say, knows Steve thinks of them as _just_ _sophomores_, without faces or lives or importance. The only excuse why he himself isn't a _just sophomore _is because of Tony and Thor, and _fuck_, it's awfully depressing how the two of them have given him practically everything he has here.

The reason why Steve doesn't finish his sentence is because, in a moment of abnormal violence and complete _insanity_, Loki is launching himself at the man, grabbing him viciously by the hair and spitting, _spitting_, in his _face_. About ninety-nine percent of the people watching have this massive heart attack and gasp, and it's like all of the air has just been sucked from the atmosphere.

Think about this. Loki spit in Steve Rogers' face. He _**spit**__ in __**Steve Rogers**__' face._ His _saliva_ touched _Steve Rogers' __**face**_. Do you understand the magnitude of this?

Good.

That's about as far as Loki gets, though (and it's probably for the best), because Tony's arms are suddenly around his chest and he's being yanked away from Steve. He lets out a sharp, furious snarl as Tony hauls him back through the shell-shocked throng of people. Everyone is gaping, totally _mindblown_, at him, because… well, you know.

The last thing Loki sees before he's enveloped by the mob is Steve's impossibly dazed face, the sudden, red-hot anger on Thor's, and the rueful grins on Remy and Marie's.

So, instead of being forever known as the sophomore that freaked out and died at Steve Rogers' homecoming party, Loki will be remembered as the sophomore that freaked out and _spit in Steve Rogers' face_ at his homecoming party. That's just a tad awesome, isn't it?

Eventually, Tony wrestles Loki into his truck, cursing about how stupid and horrible he is and _What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you do that?_.

Loki doesn't care about all Tony's freaking out, though. He just wants to get home, fall in bed, and go to sleep.

"I can't believe you did that, Loki," Tony says for the millionth time, turning into said man's neighborhood. Loki sighs softly.

"I've heard," Loki replies in a defeated voice. Most of the fury inside him has died down and been replaced with anguish, which has sent him flying past exhaustion and straight into system-breakdown. He feels like he's a building caught on fire and collapsing from his interior, unable to support himself, like there's something inside him that's been broken off and thrown into the ocean, never to be found. _That_'s what it's like after the manic episode of absolute rage is over and the unbearably low period of depression starts.

"All the ridiculous shit you've done, and _never_ have you tried something so fuckin–" Tony goes on, shaking his head at the road (which isn't that smart, because he's _still_ intoxicated and his vision is already skewed enough).

"Stupid," Loki finishes, lifting his head (that feels _much_ too heavy) to look at Tony, "I get it, okay? I get it. You love Steve and I spit in his face. Now say something beautiful or shut up before I get out of this car and let you run me the fuck over." His tone is cracked and fragmented, and his eyes look like these bottomless puddles of green and sadness; dark, tired rings circle them like markings.

Tony grows quiet, and Loki can tell his words hit home like arrows in a target. He watches as Tony turns to look at him, suddenly and horribly sympathetic and _drunkdrunkdrunk_. Shit.

"Look at the road, Tony," Loki says, not even finding the strength to scowl. He just stares at his friend and hopes he gets it.

But Tony, being the craziest, most wonderful person Loki knows, stops in the middle of the street and gazes at him, hands resting on the wheel. He frowns, and his eyes get narrow with disbelief.

"You basically just told me you want to die, Loki," Tony murmurs, holding his eyes. Loki exhales deeply and leans back against his seat, head lolling limply onto his shoulder. Shit, he feels like a goddamn ragdoll.

"It _happens_," he groans, "Especially when I go to Steve Rogers' party and my brother sets me up with his best friend who I fucking hate and you're _drinking_ and everybody hates me and…" Loki trails off with a small whine, closes his eyes. He hates this part, because it's when he's too depressed to even _cry_ that he knows he's fucked up.

Tony stays silent for a few long moments, and Loki can feel his dark, penetrating eyes on him. When Loki doesn't continue to speak, the truck starts moving again; _thank you_. The movement of the vehicle is soothing to him, and he struggles not to fall asleep when he's so close to home.

After what feels like forever, the truck stops once more and Tony squeezes Loki's hand, prompting his eyes open. The first thing Loki sees is Tony leaning across the center console, and he allows a small moan to escape him when his friend presses a deep, gentle kiss to his lips.

"Help me inside, or I'm going to hurt myself," Loki murmurs faintly against Tony's mouth when the kiss is broken.

"I believe that," Tony quietly replies, pulling away almost reluctantly to get out of the truck. Loki shakily unbuckles his seat belt, shuddering with fatigue and hunger, and he jumps despite himself when Tony tugs his car door open. Tony scowls at the action.

"Give me your keys," the man instructs, and Loki feebly digs them out of his pocket and hands them to his friend. He watches as Tony smiles briefly at the Minnie Mouse charm before reaching into the truck and sliding his arms underneath him, one hooked below his knee and the other around his back.

"Hold on," Tony says. Loki obliges by wrapping his arms around the man's neck and marginally tightening them when he's pulled out of his seat. He rests his head against Tony's neck as his friend bumps the car door closed and carries him bridal-style to his front door. Thank God for Tony.

Loki carefully lowers his feet to the ground when Tony directs him to, and he leans the majority of his weight into the man as Tony quickly unlocks his door.

After that, there's getting Loki into his house and back to his bedroom, which would be a virtually impossible feat if he didn't have Tony's assistance. He lets Tony undress him, rewards him with weak, feathery kisses whenever the man reaches for them. Loki assures Tony that he'll be fine for the night, though he really has no idea how he'll keep himself away from his medicine cabinet (never mind how drained and frail he is). He doesn't even know if he'll wake up tomorrow, because honestly, Loki feels like as soon as he falls asleep, he won't be able to come around again for about a millennium (and what's scary is that that's a _positive _thing to him). All of the strength inside him has been squeezed out, like toothpaste.

It's when Tony is gone and Loki is alone with Fenrir that he spots his phone.

* * *

**More A/N: It's done. You guys don't know how happy I am to have finished this so I can move forward and refresh myself with something lighter. Jeeze. This document on Word is thirty five and a half pages.**

**I'd like to thank all of you for the awesome feedback again. Ya'll are amazing, babes.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, my loves.**

**- Gabi.**


	9. Why Do I Keep Counting?

**Title:** Why Do I Keep Counting?  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~5570  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Tony Stark, Fenrir, Frigga.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Angst, screaming, breaking down; the works, guys.  
**Summary:** He's always been able to express his resentment about _anything_ in the world. Except for _Thor_. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So, I hope this isn't a disappointment after that monster of an update the last time around; that was abnormally long, so this is actually around normal length. Uhm, yeah. I'm actually frustrated with the beginning of this, but whatever. The title comes from a song of the same name by The Killers; the song actually inspired me through a lot of writing this, and I recommend looking it up and listening to it.

* * *

He wakes up and his phone is screaming at him. Well, it's not _actually _screaming, but the simple ringtone sounds like a fucking siren when his head is exploding on itself and he's been sleeping with this hangover for God knows how long. His teeth feel furry, his hair is uncomfortably tangled in the way you can feel all over your head, and his comforter is knotted and twisted around him like a dysfunctional cocoon.

Sobbing softly (No, really; Loki can actually feel tears in his eyes even though he's barely opened them. He's _really_ intolerant of pain.), Loki drags himself to the edge of his mattress, towards his nightstand, and as soon as he starts moving, he feels like he's going to vomit all of his organs out and die a slow and painful death. Lord have mercy.

Loki blindly gropes around on the bedside table until he manages to close his hand around his cellphone, and he's pressing the talk button before he can even glance at the Caller ID just because he needs the ringing to _stop_. If it doesn't, it's going to kill him (if not literally, it'll drive him to impulsively commit suicide).

"H-hello?" Loki whimpers shakily, and he really hates the helpless cracking of his voice. It's like the world purposefully puts him situations to be hurt or humiliated for kicks.

"You're alive," Tony gasps melodramatically over the line. Loki would laugh if he didn't know doing so would probably have him passing out from pain.

"Correction: I'm dying," Loki croaks in reply, carefully rolling onto his back and closing his eyes to the ceiling. He lets out a shuddery moan at the spasm of agony that takes him, the sharp throb of a migraine coming from the center of his head, the thick, heavy feel of his tongue. A thin, nasty sheen of sweat is covering his body, and _yes_, he feels like Death is breathing on his face and pissing all over everything he loves.

"No, you're not," Tony disagrees, "Your body's just rejecting the alcohol."

"Tony, don't argue with me. Please," Loki sighs, shivering in a way that genuinely scares him. He's absolutely certain that he's going to die, now, because his body is quaking in a way that can't be healthy.

What a way to spend his last day, huh?

"How do you deal with it?" Loki asks with a whimper. The bed shifts and he almost yells in pain, and when he glances down to find out _what the __**fuck**_ just happened, he sees Fenrir crawling onto the mattress, moving towards him. Oh, _no_.

But, wait. The universe must take just a _little_ pity on him, because Fenrir doesn't bark or nudge him or lick him or do something crazy and pain-inducing. The husky just lies down against his side and rests his muzzle on his shoulder, watching him with light, soft eyes. And then Tony laughs and it's like glass shattering to Loki's ears.

"I just get drunk again," is his response, and it makes Loki really want to hang up and stop talking to Tony for a week.

Here's the thing: Last year, Loki met Tony and they became friends, right? As they got closer, Loki started to learn things about Tony, like how he was pretty much a technological genius, and how he had an eye (and a hand) for art, and how he lacked a good relationship with both of his parents, but especially his father. He noticed that on some days, Tony would be his normal, snarky, charismatic self, while on others, the charm would fall away and he'd turn into an obnoxious, irrational douchebag that would fling himself into risky, _stupid_ situations (and drag Loki along with him, more often than not). Even stranger, sometimes Tony would be abnormally chipper, with an energy and a happiness (like, cartoon character, three year-old child happiness) that was extremely unusual for him. It wasn't until Loki went up to Tony's dorm one day to discover him finding solace in bottles of vodka and Adderall (which is prescription medication for ADHD, if you didn't know) that he realized his friend was an addict.

Tony's better now, but Loki still has that day clear in his rearview mirror. He's scared that history will repeat itself and he'll have to drag Tony out of a sea of alcohol and prescription medication once more, or, even worse, that he'll be too late and will find Tony drowned. _Dead_.

"Are you drunk right now?" Loki asks quietly, raising his hand to rest on his forehead, "And if the answer is yes, just hang up right now." He hears movement somewhere in the house and starts to cry a little bit, silently and without sniffles or sobs.

The last time Thor had him so fragile and broken to the point of tears, just with his very presence, was the month after the accident. It was so bad that Frigga had to convince Odin to bunk with Thor so that she could move into her sons' room, because every time Thor walked in there and Loki happened to already be occupying the space, it took hours for him to stop freaking out and breaking down. To be honest, it's not as unbearable now as it was then, but still. That Loki has tears springing to his eyes just because he can _hear Thor being alive_ is fucking ridiculous.

"No, no," Tony quickly answers, "I'm hungover, too. I've just been this way so many times before."

"Well, tell me something useful, then," Loki rejoins with a faked calmness. He just wants to get rid of this horrible taste in his mouth and godawful pounding in his head. The nauseous feeling is getting worse; it's like an avalanche waiting to happen. _Fuck._

"Throw up," Tony instructs, sniffing quietly, "Just throw up. Drink a lot of water and eat something with carbs in it. Let yourself breathe."

"If I _breathe_, I'm going to–" Loki starts to say, relocating the hand on his forehead to rest against his stomach, which feels like it's cannibalizing itself and trying to ram up into his throat.

"_Vomit_," Tony cuts him off, "Exactly."

Loki squints his eyes shut and hisses deeply in pain, pulling his legs up and trying to curl in and implode on himself or something. Fenrir raises his head and nuzzles gently at his neck. Loki flinches away like the dog bit him.

"Look. I'm gonna let you do your thing, okay?" Tony says after a few moments of nothing but soft wheezing and groaning from Loki. Loki whines.

"Thanks, Tony," he says with a bite of sarcasm, forcing himself to sit up. Loki has to fight against the upward surge of what he _knows_ is alcohol and stomach acid alone. Shit, the last time he ate _food_ was far too long ago (probably seven o'clock last night), no thanks to the apparent lack of sustenance in Steve's house. Oh, yeah. Steve, the guy he spit on last night. What the fuck was that about?

Loki reminds himself that he's insane. He still needs to call his psychiatrist.

"Come see me later?" Tony says with a little too much nonchalance, with that edge of teasing and snark and suggestiveness noticeable enough to be considered flirting; aka, bullshit Loki doesn't have time for when he's seriously about to _die_.

"Yeah, at my funeral," Loki huffs before hanging up, uncaring whether Tony takes offense to it or not. If he's alive in a few hours, he can deal with it then.

Loki practically shoves Fenrir off of the bed in his haste to get out of his room. He's biting a hole through his bottom lip and tripping over himself trying to get to the bathroom, and his head feels like someone's taking a hammer to it, and there's what's like liquid fire in his stomach and in his throat and _oh God_, this is one of the worst hangovers he's ever had in his life. It _is_ the worst hangover he's ever had in his life.

And then he's kneeling pitifully over the toilet, cradling his head in his hands and cursing at how his knees are aching from the impact of his unceremonious dropping onto them. His stomach is just a little better after he emptied most of its contents into the porcelain bowl before him, but _goddammit_, his esophagus feels raw and drenched in acid. Well, it _is_ raw and drenched in acid, if you think about it.

Loki sniffs wetly, then regrets it a second later when the smell of vomit fills his nose. That's really fucking gross, and it just came hurtling out of his mouth (which tastes even worse than it did before, by the way). He stuffs his fingers into his dark hair, and it's greasy and tangled and _ugh_, just the way Loki absolutely hates it. This has to be retribution for offending the god that is Steve Rogers. _Has_ to be.

"Loki?" a voice calls distantly from down the hall, and it's about two seconds before Loki is scrambling to his feet and slamming the door shut.

It's rude, it's irrational, and it's definitely _not_ on the mature side, but Loki's fight-or-flight reflex kicked in as soon as he heard his brother's voice (that's sad, isn't it?). He certainly can't fight, especially not in the broken-down, oversensitive state he's in now, so he's going to fly (or hide; same difference).

Loki presses his front against the door, panting softly and staring at the grain inches from his face. As an afterthought, he flicks the lock; just in case Thor decides to take it upon himself and hurl the door open (he'd go flying into his sink if the man did). He's listening carefully to the noise outside, and he can hear Thor's heavy, slow footsteps approaching the door. Loki worries his lip.

"Loki?" Thor repeats, louder. Loki can hear the irritation and tiredness in his brother's voice, and it suddenly occurs to him that _yes_; Thor has a hangover, too. It's probably worse than his own, because, while Loki drank half a bottle of rum last night, Thor probably had _at least_ five beers and then a lot more other liquors.

Loki doesn't answer. He just stays there, leaning against the door and biting his lip against any noise he might make. His stomach is churning again, though, and his head still fucking kills.

"Loki, open the door. Open this door," Thor demands, and when he thumps his fist against the wooden plank, Loki doesn't stop himself from jumping, from letting out a cry of surprise. His eyes start watering again, and he backs away from the door, eyes glued to it like he somehow might be able to see Thor through the thick wood. He almost can.

"Loki!" Thor yells, hitting the door again and muttering shortly after, "Goddammit, what the hell _is wrong_ with you?"

And Loki almost thinks it's _hilarious_ that Thor is _angry_ with him. That Thor is the one who's throwing a childish tantrum and pointing fingers, when Loki fucking _knows_ it should be him doing that. Thor should be the one hiding in the bathroom; not him, even though it's _always _him that's hiding. Always him that has to be the scared one, the _wrong_ one. _Always, always, always. _If he wasn't, the universe wouldn't know what to do with itself.

"_Loki_, you open this door," Thor growls, and there's a distinctly threatening quality to the way he's saying it.

Wait. He's fucking _threatening _Loki?

And then all of a sudden, that rage from last night, that fury that disappeared into depression, comes hurtling back into Loki like a goddamn eighteen-wheeler, and he's brutally beating his body against the door, screaming, "_Go away! Get the fuck out!_"

His voice sounds horrible and animalistic, like a war cry. It's the gravity that makes the tears in his eyes start to fall, the force behind every punch and kick he aims at the door, just trying to get Thor to see _what the fuck he's done to him._ Because Loki wouldn't _ever_ do this to himself, wouldn't ever get so terribly wasted, or lead Tony on, or spit in Steve Rogers' face, or let himself be vulnerable, or _beat himself senseless_ _against a fucking __**door**_ without Thor. He's never been one for self-destruction until right about now, when his shins and his knees and his arms and his knuckles are burning with pain.

"Loki, sto–" Thor starts to protest, but Loki cuts him off with a sharp, stricken howl that sounds like he's dying.

"_Shut up, Thor!_" he cries, relentlessly banging his wrist against the door. He's practically mouthing at the wood as he yells, "_Just shut up for once! Shut up, shut up, shut up!_"

And then he falls to the ground, screaming his wrath. He's just so _angry_, and it's fucking _terrifying_ how intense and huge and monstrous it is, this feeling. Loki's been pissed on tons of occasions before, and most of those times, that irritation has been directed at something he could easily empty it on. He's always been able to express his resentment about _anything_ in the world. Except for _Thor_.

Because Thor is perfect and Thor is golden, and Thor's anger is always greater, more righteous. But, wait; it isn't, not really. Thor's never felt _this_, this rage that consumes and swallows you whole like a monster. _That's _what Loki is feeling.

Eventually Loki has to stop sobbing and move, though, because his stomach happens to be crying just as hard as he is. He crawls, like a child, across the floor to the toilet and throws up again, and everything in him is suddenly on fire; his limbs are red and beaten (and they're going to be bruised badly later, _shit_), his eyes are swollen with tears, and his throat is sore from all the vomiting and yelling.

Loki moans and weakly flushes the toilet, folding his arm over the seat and laying his head against it. He doesn't know whether Thor left or stayed stationed outside the door, and frankly, he doesn't really give a damn right now (but a part of him does, because a part of him wants Thor to hear him so broken and fucked up). He just cries, and cries, and cries. And cries.

After depleting the rest of the meager supply of water in his body through tears, Loki brushes his teeth and takes a quick shower, trying to wash the dirty, grimy feeling from his body. He notices bruises already flowering on his arms and legs, and he watches the way they turn pale whenever he presses his fingers deep into them.

When Loki slowly, almost fearfully opens the bathroom door and peers out into the hallway, it's vacant. There's the faint noise of the TV in the living room, but no blatant signs of humanity. Loki knows better than to get his hopes up, though, and he takes his time going back to his room, shutting the door, and changing into his default comfort clothes: a t-shirt and shorts, if you didn't already guess. Fenrir remained sitting obediently on the floor by his bed, and after he's done dressing, Loki gets down on the carpet and pulls his dog against him, petting through his fur and letting Fenrir lick at his face. He hasn't been able to do something like that in a long time without getting mauled, and the fact really depresses him.

So, here we go. The anger has passed, and now it's time for melancholy to take the stage. This rapid cycling is really starting to wear on Loki – it's pretty exhausting, pretty _unhealthy_, to go through more than one manic and/or depressive episode each day. He feels like, in his own words from yesterday, he's on an emotional roller coaster of death, one that never seems to stop.

It soon becomes apparent that both he and Fenrir are absolutely starving, so Loki makes himself get up and go to the kitchen, dog in tow. As he passes into the living room, he doesn't look directly at the sofa, but he can see Thor sitting on it in his peripheral vision. He thinks his brother might have looked up upon his entrance, but he doesn't know (doesn't care, either).

And see? That's another thing about these mood swings; his priorities and perspective on things change so easily from one mood to the next.

Manic? _Everything is depending on how Thor reacts to me, Thor listen to me, Thor look at me, __**Thor**__._ Depressive? _No big deal._

Manic? _I need to finish that assignment and clean the mud off of the floor and do the laundry and _oh my God_, where did the time go? _Depressive? _Later._

Manic? _Tony, get over here and love all over me._ Depressive? _Tony, stop. Go away._

Manic? _I can't eat that. That's disgusting and unhealthy and has too many carbs and salt and other unhealthy items that I can't eat because I care about my well-being in it._ Depressive? _Fry it._

Manic? _Steve Rogers? I'll spit in his fucking face._ Depressive? _Steve_ _Rogers is the bane of my existence. I'll go sleep on my feelings._

Get the picture?

First, Loki busies himself with filling Fenrir's food and water bowl, allowing himself a small smile when the husky licks his nose in what is probably thanks (Loki likes to think that Fenrir has a human quality and understanding to him; why else would the dog be so sensitive to his bad moods and take the time to be _grateful_ for the care he receives? _Normal_ dogs aren't _grateful_.). Then, he heeds Tony's advice and snatches a Gatorade and a tub of cookie dough ice cream from the refrigerator. It isn't the most conventional meal, but if Tony is right, Loki needs carbohydrates and water, which Gatorade and ice cream happen to have a lot of.

As he's moving to sit at the kitchen table, Thor appears in the doorway. Loki almost drops his provisions on the floor right then and there, but he catches himself and kicks a chair back before he does. He slumps into his seat, back facing his brother as he screws the top off of his Gatorade and takes a huge sip.

"Loki… please don't ignore me," Thor says quietly, and that's a little surprising, considering how pissed off he seemed to be twenty minutes ago. Well then, you have to consider the fact that Loki turned into a screaming, exploding mess on him. That might've made an impact, don't you think?

"No ignorance on this side of the kitchen," Loki replies drily, pulling the top off of his ice cream and grabbing his spoon. He listens to the small noise Thor makes as he starts to methodically scoop ice cream into his mouth, and it's actually not that bad, considering his extremely low mood. The only downside to eating it is the energy it takes to accomplish this, however little of it there is.

Then, Thor is standing across the table from him, and Loki refuses to raise his eyes unless he absolutely has to. He's sixteen again, sitting in his mother's kitchen and waiting for Thor and/or Father to stop glaring at him and just start fussing already. But Thor doesn't fuss.

"I don't know where to start," the man sighs, running a thick hand over his face like he does when he's frustrated or trying to rein in an outburst of anger.

"Then don't," Loki says, swallowing a mouthful of Gatorade. His head is still pounding, his stomach still feels weak, and his body still generally hurts, but he can imagine that the food is helping.

Thor apparently doesn't like his answer, because he fixes Loki with a glare hard enough for him to feel when he's not actually looking at his brother. Loki sees Thor's hands ball into loose fists at his sides, and he slowly continues to eat his ice cream, idly fingering his damp, messy hair with one hand. He knows it's not smart to avoid talking about the elephant in the room, and he really doesn't want to forgo this conversation anymore; it's been held off for far too long. It's just… he's tired. _Really_ tired. And in physical pain. Yeah.

"What happened last night?" Thor finally asks, and his voice is hard and controlled, like a wire pulled taut but not tight enough to snap.

And Loki indeed feels like a tightrope walker as he answers with his usual dispassionate sarcasm, "I spit in your darling Steve's face. Weren't you there?"

Thor shoves the chair across from Loki back and plops down in it, bending in an attempt to meet Loki's eyes. Loki doesn't let him succeed, though; he just lowers his gaze even more and concentrates on consuming the Gatorade and ice cream in front of him.

"Why the fuck did you do that, Loki?" Thor snaps, his irritation more evident this time, "Why do you always have to be so complicated?"

That's what makes Loki look up, glaring lightly. He holds Thor's clear blue eyes while trying not to look too hard at the man, afraid he'll do something rash again and rip his brother's hair out if he does.

"I did it because Steve needed someone to finally let him know that he's a supercilious asshole who doesn't care about _anyone_ if they're not like him," Loki answers, keeping his voice even and slow, "What you two were doing was wrong, Thor. Remy and Marie did nothing to you."

Thor's eyes get wider and wider, his brows going higher up on his forehead as Loki speaks. He's clenching his lips shut, actually trying to _listen_ for once, but it looks like it won't be long before he bursts.

"I did it because I was _pissed_ _the fuck __**off**_," Loki goes on, and his tone quivers a bit because he's starting to see Thor, like, _really __**see**_ him, "You should know how that feels, to be so angry you can't stop yourself from _hurting someone_… right?"

Thor swallows and looks to the side, and _oh yes_. Loki's got him now, _finally_.

"I did it because sometimes I have to get a little insane for someone to actually listen to me," Loki gasps, sniffing loudly and resting a palm against his left eye. The noise catches Thor's attention, and the man looks back at Loki just in time to see a tear trail from the corner of his eye down the side of his face; his expression takes on a horrified air.

"I did it because I _hate_ Steve, because even though he's so nice and friendly and wonderful, he's got everything I don't, just like _you_," Loki continues, voice shaking, "Because you set me up with _Fandral_, because you abandoned me, because I'm crying every fucking night at everything you do, _waiting for the day_ you wake the fuck up and _see me!_"

And then Thor gets this shocked and angry expression on his face, which, coupled with the dread that was already there, looks pretty scary, like a recipe for disaster. Loki doesn't really care, because he's staring at his brother through a thin sheen of tears, biting a sore into the inside of his lip.

"This is about Fandral?" Thor asks, his brow furrowing.

Loki laughs, involuntary and completely out of disbelief. He slaps his hand down on the table, eyes wide, leans forward and answers, "Of course it is, you idiot!"

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Thor shakes his head a little, defiant, narrows his eyes and cocks his chin up in a way that's dominant and overpowering, just like everything else about him.

"W-w-what, why are you getting mad at _me_ about that?" he asks, moving towards Loki as well, "That was _his_ thing! That's what he wanted to do–"

"And you fucking _let him!_" Loki cuts him off, and suddenly his voice is that same strangled cry it was in the bathroom, and he's standing up, glowering down at Thor. He's twenty, standing in his own kitchen and screaming at his brother, because there's no time to wait anymore. Time's run out.

Thor gets to his feet as well, leaning over the table and getting in Loki's face. It's not scaring Loki, though. If anything, it's making him angrier.

"He's my friend!" Thor yells, and his face is becoming red and contorted with rage, but he hasn't touched Loki yet. He's safe (I say this because the moment he _does_ lay a hand on his brother, Loki will probably go fucking nuts and Thor will die).

"I'm your _brother!_" Loki retorts, openly crying. They're screaming at each other like animals, now, separated only by the table between them. Loki has his hands angrily splayed on the flat surface while Thor keeps fisting bluntly at the wood.

"_Yes!_" Thor huffs, blinking furiously and staring at Loki with such direct incredulity and ire, "I _am_ your brother, and I didn't want you to _get hurt!_ I wanted you to have fun with Fandral! I didn't know you already had a boyfriend."

And then Loki's obstinate resentment comes to a grinding halt. If his anger was a volcano spewing lava before, now it's like magma coursing slowly beneath the Earth, not quite dormant, but not ruthlessly destructive.

"What are you talking about?" Loki gasps, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head (there's quite a bit of head-shaking going on here, is there not?) in genuine confusion. He almost knows _exactly_ what Thor's going to say, but he doesn't know why the man would say it, see? Thor doesn't know that he and Tony are close friends. No.

Thor scowls, gives Loki this look that's so oddly pissed off and what? Protective? Disappointed? It looks like both as he says, "Steve told me all about you and that Tony Stark."

Steve _Fucking_ Rogers. The magma turns back into lava, just like that; all Thor had to do was mention Tony and Steve.

"Steve doesn't know _anything_ about me and Tony!" Loki shrieks, eyes the size of the moon. It vaguely occurs to him that this is the way it should be, that Steve really _shouldn't _know anything about him and Tony. The only way he could know about them is if Tony told him.

But, no. No, no, no, no, no. Tony wouldn't do that to them. Not to _them_.

Thor tries to interrupt, yelling over him, "He told me–!"

"_You _don't know anything about me and Tony!" Loki goes on, raising his hands into tightly-balled fists and his voice to a higher volume, "You don't even know who _the fuck_ Tony _is_! You _don't know_ Tony!"

"_Loki!_" Thor shouts, punching the table. It's enough to get Loki to shut his mouth, and the brothers stare at each other, faces contorted and red with rage and confusion and _so much_ antipathy that you can smell it, _taste_ it in the air.

Thor pants hard for a moment, catching his breath like he's been on a long run, before saying, "He told me about how you are together. About how Tony talks about you, _all the time_, about how he touches you and looks at you…"

"That's just Tony," Loki breathes, and he's suddenly much more aware of how blatantly romantic and/or sexual his relationship with Tony would appear to a bystander. That kind of changes a lot. Thor isn't listening to him, though.

"Why didn't you tell me, Loki?" Thor asks, and he looks affronted; hurt, even.

"About what?" Loki counters, "About some nonexistent romance I have with Tony Stark?" Thor glares, Loki persists, "Okay, Thor. Tony and I are dating, but _not really_, because that's not tru-"

"Are you calling Steve a liar?" Thor snaps, and _oh my God_, Loki kind of wants to just start screaming laughing at that. _Of course_ it's Steve's fault.

"I'm not calling him a liar!" Loki exclaims (oh shit, they're raising their voices again), "I'm just saying that what he told you was wrong, probably because he misunderstood. Steve isn't always right."

"Like _me_, right?" Thor answers, and damn, does it _sting_, "Because I'm always wrong to you, _right?_"

It occurs to Loki that maybe they feel the same; wrong.

"I _never_ wanted you to get hurt, Loki!" Thor yells, "That was when we were in high school, but now? I've been trying to _fix _you ever since I got here."

"Yeah, you're doing a stellar job," Loki snaps, and he really doesn't mean to get sarcastic again, but it's hard when they're so close and when, despite his words, Thor upsets him so much. _So much_.

Thor snarls, punches the table again, asks, "Well, what the fuck am I doing wrong? Is it because of what I'm doing, or is it because I'm the one doing it?"

"Both!" Loki gasps, and he's crying again, tangling his fingers in his hair and suppressing the urge to just rip it out, "You never respect me, and you never listen to me! Even though this is my fucking house, you act like you can do whatever you want in it. You don't respect anybody but yourself or Steve. And you're never there. And you've never said sorry."

They both know what the sorry is for.

Thor's eyes gradually get wide and round, his angry expression turning into something wounded. He watches Loki cry, watches him cradle his face in his hands and sob into his palms. This is a lot worse than that day in the bathroom, because they both know that if Thor tries to tell Loki to stop crying or calm down, everything will be ruined. It's too late to just _stop_.

When Loki feels like he can speak, he mutters into his hands, "You can think about that. You can do what you have to or get the hell out of my house," he pauses, looks up to regard his brother with broken, weepy eyes, "I'm not living like this, I'm not going to wait for you forever, and _you know_ I won't play nice if you don't."

Thor stares at him, impossibly vulnerable. He looks like he has honestly no idea what to do, and some part of Loki pities his sudden indecision. The two of them gaze at each other, almost as if they're waiting for the other to crack or move or breathe.

And then Thor whispers, "I'm sorry," just as the phone rings. The sound makes both brothers jump in surprise, and they hold each other's eyes for a moment longer before Loki moves to answer the telephone.

"H-hello?" Loki says into the mouthpiece (that's the second time today he's answered the phone like that), struggling to keep his voice steady and failing. Thor watches him sadly from across the room.

"Loki?" Frigga's voice comes over the line, surprised and gentle. It's like the voice of an angel, hers is, and Loki can't help but let out a sob of relief. Mother's talking. Everything's going to be fine.

"Darling, what's the matter? Are you crying?" Frigga asks, her tone growing urgent.

"Yes, Mother," Loki replies, and when he looks at Thor, his brother's expression is alarmed and so, _so_ guilty. He finds no pleasure in that, though.

Frigga pauses before musing, "It's Thor."

Loki leans against the wall and continues to watch Thor, who stands stiff as a board, as he repeats himself, "Yes, Mother."

There's a quiet shuffle over the line before Frigga says, "Let me talk to him."

Loki makes a small noise of acknowledgment and pulls the phone away from his ear. He holds up it in the air in Thor's general direction, rasps, "Mother wants to talk to you."

Thor looks like he might get angry for a moment, like he'll turn accusatory and yell at Loki. But he doesn't, instead swiftly walks over to meet his brother. He looks hard at Loki for a moment, and Loki returns his gaze, unwavering.

Then Thor takes the phone and puts it to his ear, says, "Mom?"

Loki walks around Thor and back to the table, scowling deeply when he sees the mess of ice cream, forgotten and left to melt on the wood. There go his carbs. He carefully picks the soggy tub up and runs it over to the trashcan, listening as Thor says, "Yeah. Yeah, h-he told me." Pause. "Just now."

Loki returns to the table and retrieves his bottle of Gatorade, gasping softly when Fenrir brushes against his legs. He looks down at his husky and is met with wide, anxious eyes, and he realizes that the dog most likely watched and listened to the fight between him and Thor. Of course he's worried.

Loki bends down to scratch Fenrir behind the ears as Thor says, "Mom, I know," pause, "I _don't_ have _anything_ against Loki. I wasn't trying to hurt his feelings."

Sighing softly, Loki walks out of the room with Fenrir at his heels, not looking back at Thor. He nestles into the sofa and lets Fenrir lay down on the cushion next to him, pets the dog's head when he rests it in his lap. Loki changes the TV channel from Cartoon Network to the Discovery Channel and drinks his Gatorade while he watches seahorses dance.

* * *

**I don't have much to say about this. Oh! I **_**do**_** want to let you guys know that I personally love Steve Rogers and that I have nothing against him. I just thought I'd let you know that.**

**Reviews are very much appreciated, lovely people. I love you guys, I do; without you I don't think I'd be doing this well and updating this fast.**

**- Gabi.**


	10. I Just Lied to Get to Your Apartment

**Title:** I Just Lied to Get to Your Apartment.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~4130  
**Characters:** Loki, Fandral, Fenrir, Thor. Slight, one-sided Fandral x Loki.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Awkwardness.  
**Summary:** Trying to communicate with Loki right now is like attempting to kiss a cobra; both outcomes are potentially poisonous and harmful in their own special ways. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** Okay. First thing's first; the title is a lyric from the song _This Is It_ by The Strokes, and the song is very much descriptive of what's going on between Loki and Fandral right now. Also, in addition to the comment I made about Steve in the last "chapter", I would like to say that I _love_ Fandral as well as the rest of the characters that might come off as antagonistic. I love all of them, I do. The only character I have no inkling of affection for whatsoever is Odin, and he hasn't even shown up yet. Uhm, a little way into writing this, I was distracted by the internet (oh, how surprising), and I discovered what is known as the worst fanfiction ever: My Immortal. I read over half of it and laughed hysterically, but I'm a little bit scared that the author's absolutely horrible writing style might have temporarily hindered my own. Sorry if that's the case.

* * *

He's making a list of prominent stereotypes in American culture when the doorbell rings. This occurrence automatically strikes him as _off_, because he doesn't get visitors that often. If it was Tony, there would be knocking. If it was Thor, there'd just be unlocking the door and strolling right in. If it was Frigga, she'd have called before to let him know, and Loki had been on the phone with her last night; there was no mention of a planned visit. Hm.

Loki tosses his notebook and pen on the coffee table and pushes his laptop to the side as Fenrir comes flying into the living room, barking loudly at the front door. The husky stands right up against the door, tail stiff, so he must be able to identify who the visitor is.

Loki makes his way over to the door and grips Fenrir's collar, trying to calm the husky. He stares at the wood for a moment before calling, "Who is it?"

There's a cough on the other side, then, "It's me."

Loki's mood goes screaming out of the window like a burglar caught in the act of stealing. He says nothing as he drags Fenrir down the hall and into his bedroom, closing the door after the dog. There's no doubt in his mind that as soon as he opens the front door, Fenrir will be on his visitor like a bloodthirsty wolf after prey, and _no_, he really _doesn't_ care about said visitor's well-being. Not at all. He just doesn't want to clean up the mess.

Loki runs a hand through his hair and cracks the front door open, glaring as soon as he sees the earnest blue eyes and slick blond hair waiting for him on the other side. He holds the door open with one hand, puts the other on his hip (not in that girly, sassy way, but in that assertive, _I look down on your very existence _way), and asks, "What are you doing here?"

Fandral scans him up and down for a moment, and Loki honestly feels his skin fucking _crawling_, like Fandral's eyes are spiders traveling over his flesh. Is this man_ really_ doing this, _now_? Loki twitches nervously and raises a pugnacious brow, catching Fandral's attention like he's hooking a fish.

"Uhm, have you seen Thor?" Fandral asks once he can meet Loki's eyes again, and it seems like he's actually having a hard time looking at him (which is definitely a first; the man had _no_ problem checking him out countless times before). That might have something to do with the fact that Loki's gaze is hard and frosty, thinly concealing an undeniable disgust that's almost painfully apparent between the two of them. Loki scowls.

"He's in class. You should know that," he snaps, and he pushes the door slightly more ajar only to move into the entryway, letting the heavy wood fall against his shoulder. Loki crosses his arms, an obvious expression of detachment (no really; it's psychologically proven that crossing of the arms is a social cue showing indifference or disconnection) and fixes Fandral with a challenging look, almost daring the man to defy him.

He bites, the dumbass.

"Thor doesn't talk about his classes," Fandral responds, bringing a hand up to scratch anxiously at the nape of his neck. He keeps staring at Loki's collarbone instead of his face, and it's making Loki really, _really_ uncomfortable.

"Sorry," Loki apologizes without a hint of remorse. His voice is passive and cold as he kicks the door open once more, turning away from Fandral and adding, "I'll tell him to call you or something when he gets home."

"Wait," Fandral suddenly says, grabbing the edge of the door before Loki can fully close it and, _damn_, he's just begging for a restraining order, isn't he? Loki's eyes quickly shift from icy callousness to fiery irritation as he turns back to Fandral, lithe and fluid like a dancer. He grips the door again, right under Fandral's offending hand.

"What?" he snarls, "Make it fast, because I'm not wasting my time on you." Fenrir is barking like crazy from Loki's room, like he can feel the conflict brewing. He probably can.

Fandral frowns and actually _looks_ at him, and he's got this completely serious, totally hangdog expression on his face, like Rhett Butler or Robin Hood. Loki detaches himself from the connections, though (even though _Gone With the Wind _is a _great_ fucking book and one of Loki's favorite movies, and Robin Hood is the stuff of some of the most amazing stories of his childhood).

"Do you mind if I stay here and wait for him?" Fandral asks with a touch of apprehension, and even though Loki's aware of the many implications under that simple question, he's certainly not in the mood to beat around the bush or play Sherlock Holmes and uncover the meaning behind the man's words. He has homework to do and a major grudge against Fandral, remember?

"Of course I _mind_, you ass," Loki replies, his voice almost horribly conversational and lofty. He says it like it's something polite or customary, not a complete insult (you think he'd know better after what happened the last time he offended Fandral, right?).

Instead of getting angry, Fandral looks to the side, runs his free hand through his tousled, flaxen hair. He looks like he's asking himself _why the hell_ he's doing this, and nobody should really blame him. Trying to communicate with Loki right now is like attempting to kiss a cobra; both outcomes are potentially poisonous and harmful in their own special ways.

"Can I at least talk to you?" Fandral finally says, almost forcibly returning his gaze to Loki.

Loki knows he doesn't want to talk to Fandral. He knows he doesn't want to _look _at Fandral. He knows that their proximity is really bothering him, and he knows he's far from trusting Thor's best friend. But he's also had his argument with Thor weighing heavily on his mind for the past week. That makes something of a difference, right?

"I won't touch you; promise," Fandral puts in, holding his hands up in a gesture of innocence and smiling like an impish child. It's cute, and it looks honest.

Then again, Loki hasn't encountered something that was truly cute and honest since he was fifteen. This is probably going to suck _hard._

After watching Fandral with meaningful, tense eyes, Loki holds the door open, sighing, "Come in."

At first, Fandral looks like he seriously can't believe Loki's letting him into the house. He probably can't (just think about how Loki is, only for a second). And then he slowly steps inside, looking around the living room with a newfound respect, or something like that. It's a little funny to watch, and Loki observes the man curiously as he closes the door.

"Okay. Go," Loki prompts tersely, walking around Fandral and making his way back over to the couch. He feels the other's eyes on him as he moves, and it really seems like for almost every moment the two of them interact with each other, Fandral is absolutely unable to take his eyes off of Loki. It's discomforting; Loki doesn't liked to be looked at so intensely by someone he's honestly not that familiar with.

"Well, uhm… can I say sorry?" Fandral asks as Loki sinks down onto the couch, folding his slim legs under him. Loki doesn't want to look too comfortable, but he doesn't want to freeze the nerve right out of Fandral, either. He straightens his back (which means he doesn't do shit; his posture is naturally upright) and snatches his notebook from the coffee table, balancing it on his knee in a way he knows is visually unsettling (psychology and sociology classes come in handy when situations like these fall into his lap).

"I don't know, can you?" Loki retorts, keeping his expression perfectly passive. He watches Fandral's face tighten; he's working on the man's nerves, which could go in a very good direction (scare Fandral into finally taking him seriously), or an equally bad one (cause a repeat of the party, though he doubts that would happen now with the distance between them).

"Alright, I'm _sorry_," Fandral amends, folding his arms. Loki rapidly picks up on the meaning of the gesture; Fandral's uncomfortable, and he's not used to being straightforward. _Right_.

"Acknowledged," Loki replies drily, relocating his notebook to his lap and blindly grabbing his pen. He transfers a fraction of his attention back to his assignment, and _really_, he's being a huge fucking asshole on purpose (only because he can). Loki adds _Jewish-American princess _to his list and makes a brief note about the stereotype.

"Thor told me about how upset you were," Fandral says, and Loki feels kind of like a porcupine now. You know how they raise their spikes and roll up whenever they get pissed off? That's kind of the sensation he's getting at the moment.

"So you needed his input to figure that out?" Loki bites back, letting a trace of the aggressiveness and none of the actual hurt he feels bleed into the question. This is really distressing; watching himself turn into a wolf because of the people that are suddenly, so rudely in his life. Speaking of wolves (or other species in the genus _canis_, whatever), Fenrir sounds like he's about to rip down the bedroom door. Loki's going to need to check on that.

"No, I got it when you called me _disgusting_," Fandral replies. It's kind of funny, really, especially since he says it so casually, even though the statement is actually pretty critical.

"Good to know we're on the same page," Loki says with a hint of a laugh, a spark of sarcasm. He's wondering _what the fuck is Fandral still doing here?_ as he jots down _Peaceful Native American vs. savage Native American _because honestly, what else is the man going to say to him? That he wants to get married and have two-point-five children and move into a huge suburban house with Thor, Sif, Volstagg, Hogun, Fenrir, and a brand new cat (worst family _ever_)?

His internal query is answered when Fandral goes on with, "I didn't want to hurt someone like you."

_What?_

Loki raises his head to fix Fandral with a petulant glower, and if the man had a hard time looking at him before, that's certainly passed, because he's just outright _staring_ at Loki, like it's perfectly normal and not at all out-of-place to gawk at people. Uhm, boundaries?

"What do you mean, _someone like me_?" Loki asks, fiddling with his pen a bit. He struggles to hold Fandral's gaze, but that's difficult when he's suddenly so awkward and small. Damn it, it really _sucks_ when this happens.

Fandral worries his lip at that (still _looking _at Loki, _Jesus Christ_), obviously uncomfortable with continuing down the road he started them on. Oh, _no_, not in Loki's house, not when Thor's due to arrive in about fifteen minutes or so and he's got to finish this goddamn list.

"Fandral, don't bullshit me again. _What do you mean?_" Loki barks, and it occurs to him that this is probably the first time he's actually addressed Fandral by his name. How interesting. (Did you hear the slight sarcasm?)

And then Fandral laughs a little, glances at the floor for a moment before going right back to _staring_ at Loki (who isn't impressed with his reaction). He swivels his jaw cursorily, gives Loki another once-over before just saying, completely out of the blue, "Well, you're so beautiful."

And _whoa, whoa, __**whoa**_; Loki _really_ doesn't like this. This is a trap, isn't it? _Isn't_ it? Ashton Kutcher is going to come flying out of nowhere with a camera crew and a microphone and Loki's going to be Punk'd, right (even though he's not a celebrity and that's absolutely absurd)? He can't help the widening of his eyes, the heat that's suddenly on his cheeks, _what the actual fuck. What the actual __**fuck**_.

But, no. This isn't a joke (if it is, it's an awfully _bad_ one), because Fandral is saying, "And you're really smart, and different, but you're so guarded and angry–"

"Stop," Loki sharply cuts him off, running a hand through his inky hair and eyeing the carpet. Fandral huffs, makes Loki look at him again. He's smirking knowingly, like there's some kind of inside joke only he's in on. What the hell is happening?

"See, that's what you're doing right now," Fandral points out, steps closer, and no, no, no. Loki's not having _this_ conversation with the man who sexually harassed him on a daily basis before Steve's party ever happened. Not _Fandral_.

"Don't remind me of something about myself I'm already well aware of. You defeat your purpose of 'enlightenment' or 'flattery'," Loki snaps, gripping his pen tightly. His eyes are hard and cold as he lets Fandral absorb the information; Fandral continues to watch him with this unnerving, constant gaze.

"Sorry, Loki," he says, and it actually sounds genuine, "That cut a little close to the bone, didn't it?"

"Only a little," Loki snarks, looking back to his notebook and scribbling _Self-destructive narcissist (Byron-esque)_ down on his list. He hears Fandral move closer, and his irritation spikes that much more. He's a big fan of personal space, if you hadn't noticed.

"So the _flattery_ didn't work?" Fandral asks, his voice just a bit quieter. Loki's still trying to figure out whether this is actually for real or complete and utter bullshit.

"_No_," Loki responds emphatically, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear and glancing at Fandral again before writing _Inarticulate, gluttonous Cajun_, "Resorting to empty sycophancy won't guarantee you a quick lay, Fandral."

Fandral gives him this authentically offended look, but instead of shoving Loki against a wall/counter/table/sofa/other conveniently-placed piece of furniture and raping his mouth, he argues, "I wasn't trying to get in your pants." Stupidly, he adds, "That would've been a plus, but I wasn't actually thinking about that. That wasn't me just talking out of my ass. I meant what I said."

Loki's still just a tad unconvinced; it's in his nature, and Fandral was right about how very _angry _and _guarded_ he is. He lets the tip of his pen linger on his page, blinks thoughtfully. A colorful screensaver pops up on his laptop in his peripheral vision.

"And it's not really my fault, honestly," Fandral goes on, and _no_, Loki's not going to make the same mistake twice.

Psyche!

He allows himself a brief laugh, looks up at Fandral and actually smiles a _real_ smile. Fandral seems to like it, because he completely passes over what would have probably pissed him off in favor of returning the grin. Okay, this is weird.

"What are you talking about?" Loki chuckles, shaking his head a little, "Just keep your hands, feet, and body to yourself, just like they taught you in kindergarten."

Fandral just watches him for a moment, smiling in a way that's loose and _okay_, not perverted or suggestive for once (And alright, this is a man that has called Loki by almost every disgustingly cutesy and/or sexual pet name there is, forced him into one of the most painful kisses he's ever had, and told him he's beautiful. That accounts for a little awkwardness.) before he says, "I'll tell you a secret if you tell me one."

Where the fuck did that come from? _Soul-sharing_? This isn't fucking _Care Bears_, man.

But Loki finds himself nodding just slightly, and then Fandral moves to sit on the coffee table across from him (When is it okay to sit on the coffee table? Only when Loki's doing the sitting. Any time else and you've broken the law; say hello to officer Fenrir.). Fandral lets out this heavy sigh and runs both hands through his hair, and he's actually being pretty fucking honest for someone who lies so much.

"So, basically," Fandral begins, pausing to cradle his jaw in his hand, "The way I grew up, my parents didn't really care about what I got myself into." He's looking at Loki totally straight-faced (he's _for serious_, holy shit) as he says, "They actually kind of introduced me to most of the things I messed around with."

And Loki doesn't stop himself from scowling (nothing against fucked-up childhoods and people who've experienced them; he's actually sort of-kind of been through one himself), starts to ask, "Did they–?"

Fandral automatically starts shaking his head, laughs airily and answers, "No, no, no. But they didn't exactly raise me perfectly, did they?"

Loki can't help but point out, "Nobody gets raised _perfectly._" I don't know how apparent it is by now (I think it's pretty obvious), but Loki's a stickler for details and accuracy. Even if they're not immediately important to the situation, he feels the need to indicate them.

Fandral nods minutely, looks at him and says, "Mine were a little under average."

It makes sense. It makes Loki feel just a little bit of empathy, just a small touch of pity (that he probably won't act on for a _long_ time) for Fandral. It _doesn't_, however, guilt him into automatically forgiving the man. No. That's not how he rolls.

And then Fandral asks, "What about you?", and it dawns Loki that he has to come up with a secret to tell. Oh, yeah. Uhm… this is strange.

So Loki takes a lengthy pause, staring at his notebook and trying to come up with something private, but not too personal. I mean, just because Fandral is willing to inform Loki that he was borderline sexually abused (because technically, psychologically, that _is _sexual abuse) as a child doesn't mean Loki is just raring to go and tell him something of the same nature. Is that unfair? Maybe a little. Did it have to _be_ fair? He wasn't notified.

"Just say something," Fandral urges. It's enough to make Loki a little indiscriminate.

"I didn't fully accept my gender identity until I was ten," he blurts out, finally ripping his eyes from his page. That's not _bad_, at least not in his opinion. It might be considered amazing or radical to most people, but to Loki, there's about (_about_) a half a fuck he could give before not caring at all. He was a kid, and gender isn't that huge a factor (to him).

Fandral's face breaks out into this grin that half-amuses, half-irritates Loki. He knew the man would find his 'secret' entertaining, but that knowledge doesn't quell the odd mixture of annoyance, pleasure, discomfort, and anxiety swirling inside him. Does anybody make him feel _normal _these days?

(The answer is _no_.)

"That's not so bad," Fandral comments, and _really_, he's looking a little too tickled for Loki's comfort.

"I'm glad you think so," Loki replies flippantly, and almost as if this situation couldn't get any more _awkward_, the latch on the front door flicks open, and Thor is suddenly trudging through the doorway, backpack slung over his shoulder, and Loki and Fandral are turning whiplash-fast to look at him. He automatically stops, like a mountain (_ha_), eyes darting nervously between his brother and his best friend (who he knows aren't exactly buddy-buddy). Loki swallows thickly.

"How was class?" he asks, totally out-of-character, because there hasn't been a _day_ before this one when he's been interested enough in Thor's education to ask about it. His actual aim is to ease the abrupt tension in the room. Thor finally decides to settle on looking at Loki.

"It was busy," Thor answers, and he says it with the hint of a question, like he's asking _What's going on here?_ without saying those exact words. Loki can see the shade of protectiveness that takes over his brother's expression, and he ponders whether the defense is in regard to him or Fandral (which is stupid, because it's _obviously_ for Loki).

"Well, Fandral was just waiting for you," Loki says, reaching behind his head to card his fingers through his raven hair in an expression of deliberate glibness. Thor is, surprisingly, as sensitive to body language as he is (well, at least concerning his family and close friends), so he most likely notices the calmness of Loki's demeanor, while not its pretension.

But the funny thing is that Fandral seems exceptionally surprised by Loki's statement, because he jumps up and starts glancing between him and Thor, much like the latter of the two was doing before. Loki narrows his eyes a bit, gives Fandral this furtive _What the hell?_ look.

"Uhm, it's okay," Fandral laughs, grinning easily at Thor (_what?_), "I've actually gotta get going."

Thor raises an eyebrow like he's doubtful of his friend's claim, but ultimately gives this offhand shrug and says, "That's cool."

And all Loki can think is _Excuse the __**hell**__ out of me_ as he watches Thor and Fandral exchange firm handshakes and brusque, manly (_ugh_) hugs. Before exiting the house altogether, Fandral looks back and gives him this surreptitious smirk that Loki responds to with an open scowl, not caring whether or not Thor sees.

As soon as the door shuts, Thor turns to Loki. Loki's glaring.

He silently realizes that he was misled, although perhaps for a benevolent purpose, once again. Fuck _everything_.

"Are you okay?" Thor asks, roughly dumping his backpack on the floor and making his way over to the sofa. Loki scoots to the side a bit reluctantly, closing his Gateway and carefully dropping it onto the floor to allow his brother more space. The cushion sinks under Thor's heavy weight.

"Did you ask him to visit?" Loki inquires instead of replying straightforwardly, looking hard at Thor to ensure his honesty. He props his elbow on his knee and rests his face against his hand, sighing quietly.

Thor's brows come together and he lets out this brief scoff, leans back against the sofa and says, "No," like that should be completely obvious. He sounds like he's telling the truth, which automatically means he is (Thor is a terrible liar).

Loki closes his eyes for a moment, exhaling deeply through his nose, and when he opens them again, they've softened a bit. He answers Thor's earlier question in a quiet voice, "I'm fine."

Thor is watching him really intently, almost like how you'd watch an animal that's been wounded or scared. Not to suggest that Loki's an animal, but that Thor is pretty sure that Fandral either hurt or spooked him in some inexplicable way. Thor briefly sucks his lips into his mouth, asks, "What did he say to you?"

Here's something to think about: Thor knows Fandral enough to predict that the man probably told Loki something outlandish and possibly offensive, while he also knows Loki enough to surmise that he might have been bothered by it, what with his sensitivity and tendency to over-think what others say.

Loki blinks and idly rubs at the corner of his eye, maintains the gaze he shares with Thor and responds, "He apologized to me and told me about his childhood."

Thor smiles like water seeping through cracks in the pavement; it's gradual and a little reluctant, but eventually he's grinning outright and laughing his thunderous laugh, and Loki slowly realizes how odd his answer has the potential to sound. He lets himself laugh as well, albeit in a more reserved fashion than his brother.

"His childhood?" Thor chuckles, leaning forward and mirroring Loki's position (somewhat). The only difference between their stances is the placement of their legs; while Loki's are crossed, Thor's are just slightly spread.

"Well, it's not like he talked about when he learned to tie his shoes and his first day of school, Thor," Loki hums, amused, "Has he ever told you about his parents?"

Thor bites his lip and furrows his brows for a moment, confused, before his eyes widen and he starts to nod in realization.

"_Ohhh_, he told you about _that_," Thor says, and his voice is actually _really_ loud. Surprisingly, Loki doesn't care that much, and Thor goes on with, "That's weird. He doesn't usually go around telling people that stuff."

"I suppose I'm different," Loki muses with a smile, and Thor smirks at him.

They end up talking for a good fifteen minutes before Thor realizes that he _really_ needs to get ready and go to football practice, which starts at four-thirty. He asks Loki (in an unexpectedly polite way) if he can pick him up tomorrow. Loki pretends to think hard about his answer.

He says _yes_, because today's the first time since the argument that he and Thor have had a conversation for over five minutes. He says _yes_, because he feels pretty hot about life right about now.

* * *

**So, I was on the road while writing a huge chunk of this, and I just thought this was interesting enough to let you guys know: around the part where Fandral is complimenting Loki, that song **_**Hero**_** by Enrique Iglesias came on the radio. I laughed really hard at that.**

**Also, I'd like to ask you all for some ideas you have for the story; not in terms of relationships or characters (because I know what I want to do with them), but like, any odd or interesting events that you might have in mind. I have a storyline planned out for a long while now, but it kind of stops at a weird point, and I need more ideas for after that.**

**I'm submitting this having only read over the last half of it, so I'm sorry if it reads unusually at the beginning. I'll probably end up rereading this later, and I might make a few changes (but it isn't guaranteed).**

**Reviews are very much appreciated, lovelies. :]**

**- Gabi.**


	11. Gridiron I

**Title:** Gridiron I.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~8010  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, Thor, Steve Rogers; Tony/Loki, mentioned Thor/Sif, some heavily implied, unrequited pairing of which I want you guys to guess.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Dee-presh-eon and draw-mah. To tha maximum.  
**Summary:** He gazes at a crow perched on a rather large shrub a little ways away, thinks about how he used to wish he could be a bird when he was little. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So, this is going to be split into two parts because the two storylines I'm writing are 1) somewhat consecutive, and 2) both dealing with football. I'm sorry that this took awhile to get finished but, like _Like Toothpaste_, it ended up being longer than I anticipated because emotional curveballs and plot twists kept throwing themselves at me.

* * *

He's taking a day off of work for this. That's a little crazy and out-of-character, but something tells him the break will be worth it. What that something is is totally unknown to him (it could be his conscience, or an angel, or dementia), but it's there, whispering in his ear.

Loki ends up leaving the house earlier than he probably should out of boredom only. He's used to being out and working at this time, so sitting around his house and distractedly trying to finish his psychology homework (which is pretty easy today) is markedly tedious and uninteresting compared to what he _could_ be doing. So, he grabs his textbook and his behavioral packet and drives out to the football field.

Loki knows he's injecting himself into a handful of things he really, _seriously_ doesn't like: football, Steve Rogers, and the pompous, rude Elysian Lions. He also knows he's probably making a stupid decision by taking unnecessary lengths to put himself in this unsavory situation. He _also_ knows that he really doesn't give a damn, considering the fact that the team will be consumed with their practice and he will be somewhat absorbed in his homework until the coach blows the final whistle. Besides, what's life without variety? (_Blissful_.)

Loki situates himself at the very top of the bleachers, the one spot where people are least likely to notice or pester him. The weather is just a tad too warm, but the occasional breeze that blows makes up for the heat (thank _God_). Loki takes a lengthy moment to watch the practice that's taking place, but it's a little hard for him to get into considering that his mind literally refuses to understand football. No, really. No matter how many times Thor or Tony has tried to explain the sport to him, it isn't possible for him to wrap his head around it. That's just how it is.

So, because watching football is tantamount to having an aneurysm or falling asleep from the monotony, Loki tears his attention away from the mock-game and focuses on his homework. The first page in the packet covers vocabulary; extremely simple.

Loki's defining _cognitive behavior_ in his own words when he hears the tell-tale clang of footsteps approaching him. He decides not to look up to express his lack of desire for socialization, assuming that whoever wants to bother him is just another person he can do without. But, it turns out that the stranger really _isn't_ a stranger, and is actually someone Loki really can't_ not_ have in his life at this point.

"Hey, busy-bee," is what makes Loki's head snap up, what makes him smile, amused, when he sees and hears his intruder. Cue some pretentious French-speaking (Loki likes to do that, especially to people who aren't as fluent as him).

"Bonjour, mon chérie," Loki replies, watching Tony climb over a few more bleachers with nimble steps. He idly twirls his pen between his thumb and forefinger.

Truthfully, Loki didn't expect to see Tony here. Not to say that he's displeased with the man's appearance, but he is surprised by it (in a slightly good way).

"I'm guessing, _hello, my love_?" Tony translates as he moves to stand in front of Loki, panting lightly from the effort of climbing what's practically Mount Olympus to reach him. He crosses his arms over his chest, grinning in what looks like airy satisfaction.

"_Good day_. Bonjour means _good day_," Loki modifies, smirking because he knows that he likes to be critical, and that Tony thinks it's the best (sometimes worst) thing in the world when he acts that way.

"My bad, my bad," Tony laughs, shaking his head. He wipes his hand over his face to get rid of the pesky film of sweat there.

"Did you come here for me or for Steve?" Loki asks, and _yes_, it's a bitchy question. It really is. But it's also completely relevant when you have the three of them (Loki, Tony, and Steve) all in the same situation, and in such close proximity and awareness of each other. See what I mean?

Tony scowls, though (Loki can get on his bad side just as well as he can on his very best), and instead of answering, he says, "Loki, I haven't seen you in almost a week. Can I at least get a hug?"

Okay, yeah. That makes sense. To be honest, Loki wasn't thinking about how his week-long, nearly total withdrawal from all socialization with others (including Tony) would affect his friend, even though he _should have_. He should have known that Tony would take offense to it, that Tony would get worried and nervous and maybe just a little bitter.

"I'm sorry," Loki quickly apologizes, dropping his packet and textbook onto the bleachers next to him and rising to his feet. He moves into Tony's arms as soon as the man opens them, hugging his friend as tightly as he can (because, believe it or not, Loki mourns his lack of substantial contact with people, especially Tony).

"I missed you, man," Tony sighs, and his voice is heavy like a raincloud as he hugs Loki back. When Loki pulls away to look at him, the man's expression looks almost pained at the distance between them, however little of it there is, and he scratches his head and asks, "Where'd you go?"

Damn. Way to make Loki feel like shit.

"Jupiter," Loki answers only half-sarcastically, smiling a bit when the jibe brings a similar expression to Tony's face. That means he isn't _totally_ in the doghouse.

"Care to tell me about that?" Tony urges as Loki returns to sitting on the bleachers. Loki relocates his homework back to his lap so Tony can join him (even though there's like twenty-plus feet of bench on his other side).

"Where do I start?" Loki asks, even though Tony can't possibly tell him when he doesn't know what's been going on. He can be some kind of vain and difficult sometimes, can't he?

But, oh! Tony does have an answer (and it's one that Loki really hates himself for).

"How about after you hung up on me on Saturday?" Tony replies drily, and keep in mind that today is _Thursday_ (which means it's been five days since Loki has actually talked to Tony, six since he's done it while not being angry/drunk/hungover/etc.) and that Tony seldom uses that tone when talking to Loki. Also remember that Thor and Steve think they're going out, which sort of-kind of makes Loki consider going out with Tony, and _oh God_, it's like balance refuses to find itself in Loki's life. As soon as some sort of normalcy and civility is in the Thor department, everything has to go screwy with Tony. _Great_.

Loki forces himself not to show that he's all-out panicking on the inside (because if Tony knows he is, he'll start freaking out, too) and almost begs, "Will you promise not to go off on me and just _listen_ for a few minutes? I know you probably hate me right now."

Tony makes a face, shakes his head for a moment and says, "Hate? Never. But I'm not perfectly happy with you, if you know what I mean."

Loki doesn't even try to defend himself. He frowns and exhales through his nose, rejoins with, "I don't blame you."

He says it because it's true, and because _yeah_, he feels really fucking bad about himself (about everything, _goddammit_, because nothing stays good for long). But, because Tony is horribly complicated and altruistic (only when it comes to him or Steve or Pepper), he gets this slightly sympathetic look on his face and says, "Don't say that."

_Jesus Christ_. Loki chooses to ignore the compassion, watch the football field, and just start talking.

"After I hung up on you, what basically happened was Thor and I got into this really bad argument," Loki says, watching as his brother tackles _the __**fuck**_ out of Logan Howlett, "He asked me why I spit in Steve's face," Loki feels a little bit like he's walking on thin ice when he says this, because he knows Tony might still be sore about that, "… and it turned into something about Fandral, I guess. Uhm… he told me that Steve thinks we're dating," _that_ was risky, "… and then he asked what he was doing to make me so angry all the time…"

Tony interjects and laughs, "He had to _ask_ you?" Some of his good humor is back, _awesome_. Loki still doesn't look at him, though.

"Well, he's _Thor_," Loki replies, and is he actually defending his brother? Shit, what's the world coming to?

"True," Tony says, and Loki takes it as an invitation to keep going. It's almost like he's developed this awesome storytelling skill that he loves to use every time he sees his friend.

"So I told him what's been bothering me," Loki goes on, and his words are kind of funny to him, because it isn't _bothering him _so much as _driving him insane_. "And then the phone rang, and it was Mother, and she wanted to talk to Thor."

Tony makes a low noise, asks, "Did she bust his ass?"

Loki chuckles quietly at the question and replies, "I assume she did, but I don't know for sure because I walked out of the room. But, uhm… when Thor and I were arguing, he told me that he didn't actually want to hurt my feelings, and he sort-of apologized. Or something. The phone rang when he started to say sorry."

Tony doesn't say anything in response, and Loki's secretly very pleased with that; he doesn't want to hear something like _Well, that's good_ or _I'm happy for you_, because he gets enough of that from Frigga.

"After he got off the phone, he went into his room," Loki continues, absently rubbing his thumb against the shaft of his pen, "I went to go check on him, and we…" he pauses, sighs quietly and tries to figure out just _how_ to say what they did, because describing it in simple, plain terms seems inadequate. His eyes are glued to Thor as he deliberates; the man is talking animatedly with Steve as the two of them walk the length of the field.

Just as Tony starts to prompt him into speech, Loki finally says, "We… sat together. And that sounds weird and stupid, but I can't really think of any other way to say it. We just _sat together_, not talking, for God knows how long."

Tony is silent for a moment before he notes, "That sounds like a miracle."

And it's true; it really _does_ sound phenomenal. It's nearly impossible for Loki and Thor to forgo speech when they're in the same room, especially if they're alone. One of them automatically feels the need to talk when around the other. That's the way it's been since they were children.

Loki wants to lean back _really_ badly, but if he does, he'll go plummeting off the edge of the bleacher he's on to a painful and violent death (or possibly just a severely broken body). To remedy his problem, he scoots off of his seat and sits on the pseudo-floor beneath him, resting his back against the bench on which he was just sitting.

"After that, I guess I didn't feel like talking to anybody, really," Loki explains, effectively connecting the argument with Thor to his social departure. He thinks it adds up, even though a lot of really it doesn't to him.

"So that's why you dropped off the face of the planet?" Tony queries, and there's just a hint of uneasiness in the question, like he's doubting Loki's claim. Oh, no.

Loki looks up at Tony, frowns a bit as he says, "_Yes_, Tony. Did you think it was _you_?" He asks because he knows Tony has a tendency to think like that sometimes, because he can hear the self-deprecation and accusation in the man's voice.

Tony further proves Loki's knowledge when he shoots him a cynical look, answers, "Well, no shit. You hung up on me, disappeared for _a week_, and as soon as I see you again, you're throwing Steve at me. Of course that's what I thought."

Loki is officially the worst friend of all time. And Tony loves him nonetheless. Wow, universe, you make a whole lot of sense, you know that?

"Tony, no," Loki protests, sliding his homework out of his lap again and moving to sit backwards on the bleacher below Tony's. He reaches for Tony's hands, adding once he has them in his own, "If I were upset with you, I'd tell you. And why would I be?"

Tony watches him with a carefully placid expression, replies, "I was drunk the last time you saw me, I fussed at you about Steve, and I'm generally a huge asshole?"

God, they're both horrible.

"_Stop it_," Loki snaps a little harsher than he means to (that's probably not helping his whole _I'm not mad at you_ argument), squeezing Tony's fingers in that awesomely-reassuring way he has, "It's not you."

And, okay. _That's_ just a little bit of a lie. Loki was telling the truth when he said he wasn't upset with Tony, but to say the man had nothing to do with him becoming a semi-hermit isn't totally honest. Because Tony _is _a part of it, because Loki has been wasting a chunk of his alone time pondering a future where the two of them aren't _just friends_, because Loki's afraid that if he isn't prepared to see Tony and he does, he'll make a massively foolish, impulsive decision. He's pretty ecstatic that he hasn't fucked up this encounter too badly, even though, knowing him, he probably will soon.

Tony is observing him so skeptically, though. Oh, God.

"Stop looking at me like that," Loki practically pleads, and the appeal sounds irritated as well as desperate. Shit, shit, shit, this is getting _bad_.

"Stop hiding," is Tony's response. It's probably the most wonderful, most _terrible_ thing he could say right about now.

So, Loki convinces himself he's doing this to get Tony to _shut his stupid mouth_. Yep, this is just him acting like the manipulative prick he is to get his way, to make things easy and simple and clean.

Except it's _not_, and Loki's making things messy and complex and dirty (for him) when he moves up and kisses Tony. There's nothing superficially different about the gesture, nothing that sets it apart from the similarly solid, airtight kisses they've shared in the past. The one alteration is something only Loki notices:

He _likes _it, wants it even. And this is too weird, too _off_, because any other time and he'd be doing Tony a favor by kissing him. Now, he's indulging himself, and Loki _never_ uses Tony in _this _way, not until now. Besides that, what the fuck does it say when Tony asks him to stop hiding and he responds with a _kiss_? Loki hopes Tony doesn't detect the sudden streak of desire in him as he pulls away to sit back on his bleacher.

Suddenly, life goes back to sucking for Loki. _Why_ does it suck?

Because now Loki has to pretend he's not seriously thinking about screwing Tony. _Why _does he have to pretend?

Because he's afraid as soon as it happens, just once, he'll be that bitch who wants to _stay friends_. _Why _is he afraid?

Because he doesn't even know how he feels right now. Because it's like every time he's with Tony, they're taking two steps into _dating_ territory, and if he turns out to be the _stay friends-bitch_, they'll be taking about a hundred steps out of actual _friendship_. Because of Steve. Because of Fandral. Because of Thor.

"Loki?" pulls him out of his reverie. He meets Tony's eyes and it hits him like an epiphany (or a semi, same difference) that he really doesn't have to be cagey about this.

"I think I want to go out with you," Loki blurts, and he swears the words _hurt_ coming out of his mouth, like they're dredging knives into his throat and tongue and lips as they escape. Every time he says something with the potential to offend Tony (believe me, this _does_ have that potential), he feels like _this_.

Tony's eyes widen a bit, and he makes this weird, sort of-relieved, sort of-disbelieving noise. He maneuvers his hands so that he's holding Loki's instead of the other way around (he does that a lot, actually) and says, so perfectly _right_ it could be scripted, "But?"

There are always _buts_.

The only thing Loki can think to say without rambling or making no sense is, "But I'm scared." His voice is a whisper even though nobody can hear their conversation, and he feels a little bit like there's a stone in his heart. That's the worst sensation, and you know why?

Because it's called _dread_, and Loki thinks it's a pretty bad sign if he's feeling want and terror at the same time in relation to Tony.

Tony frowns, impossibly _disappointed_, shakes his head and replies just as quietly, "Don't be scared. Please, don't be scared."

Loki closes his eyes because can't _stand_ to see Tony so suddenly despondent. He lets his hands go limp, breathes deeply in an attempt to quell the anxiety inside him. It doesn't work (predictably).

"Loki…" Tony sighs, letting go of one of his hands. Loki blindly reaches for the lost appendage until he feels it at the back of his head, and he settles for grasping at Tony's shirt as the man kisses his forehead. This is too much, like an earthquake or a hurricane blown straight through his state of mind. Things can't be _this _depressing between them, they just _can't_.

"Don't change anything," Loki says, opening his eyes and pushing against Tony's chest. He watches the awful splay of hope, confusion, and defeat on his friend's face as he goes on with, "Don't do anything other than what you normally would. Just give me some time."

It sounds horrible and sappy and too much like a carefully disguised rejection to Loki's ears. And that's sad, because if it _was_ a rejection, he'd either be denying himself or making Tony crazy. Which is exactly what he's doing. Oh Lord.

But Tony replies, "Okay," and that's great, because it _is_ okay if Tony says it is. Until the moment Loki actually makes his decision or Tony blows up from impatience, it's _okay_.

Stupidly trying his luck, Loki inquires, "You're not going to run away?"

Tony smiles (_smiles_, thank God) and cheekily retorts, "Why would I when I know what you're going to say?"

This is one of those moments when Loki knows why he loves Tony so much. He grins, says, "Kiss me?"

Tony's smile turns into a smirk (there's a difference) as he asks, "Still not changing anything?"

Loki shakes his head, impish, laughs when Tony bends over to press a loud, messy kiss to his lips. He's got this mantra of _Itsokayitsokayitsokayitsokay_ playing in his head, reminding him not to start flipping out about this until he gets home tonight (because Lord knows he will as soon as he's alone).

So Loki and Tony kill some time and hang out for about ten minutes. The sun slowly lowers itself in the sky (it makes Loki think of a wilting flower crumbling to the ground) as football practice winds down to a close. Tony is telling him about how he needs to go to the homecoming game tomorrow (uhm, _no_) when Loki hears footsteps clanking on the bleachers again. He looks over to see a yin yang-sort of sight (I say _yin yang_ because it stirs up both positive and negative feelings inside Loki): Thor, with Steve trampling behind him. Great.

"Loki! Hi!" Thor calls to him, and it's just a little bit hysterical how his expression goes from excited and eager because of Loki to just short of shell-shocked and aggressive once he notices Tony. Loki doesn't know whether it's Tony himself (it shouldn't be, because, like he said, Thor doesn't even know Tony) or the fact that they're sitting so close beside each other, so obviously comfortable and in no need of anything else in the world because they're _together_. Okay, that was really dramatic.

Loki doesn't stop himself from smirking, opting to ignore Steve's presence for now (it's like every time this man shows up, Loki's aggravation level skyrockets) and reply, "Hello, Thor."

Thor and Steve eventually decide to stop about five bleachers from the top (And can you blame them? They've been practicing for what, an hour or so? Of course they don't want to have to climb a whole motherfucking mountain.), panting like dogs. They both just stop and stare at Loki and Tony for an almost imperceptibly awkward moment, like they're a pair of exotic animals mating at the zoo, before Thor speaks again.

"You remember Steve, right?" he asks, and Loki appreciates the sarcasm and intent to smooth things over in his brother's tone. Steve waves a pleasant little wave; Loki can't tell whether the gesture is ostentatious or not.

"Of course I do," Loki retorts, offering an innocuous smile and addressing Steve with, "How are you?"

If you think about it, this is really uncomfortable, because before the party and what took place there happened, Loki and Steve weren't exactly friends, but they weren't enemies nor were they strangers. They smiled at and said hello to each other and had completely amiable, entirely customary conversations. Steve, of course, was much keener than Loki to seek out socialization simply because he didn't have a reason to dislike him, unlike Loki, who had a handful of those. The majority of the information the two of them knew about each other didn't come from their own mouths, but from Tony's (or Thor's, but mostly Tony's). There was never any excuse to rock the boat that was their relationship until the party.

Now, Steve unfortunately knows or can accurately predict how very unpleasant Loki's feelings for him really are, most likely thinks Tony is crazy for favoring him so much, and has full reign to walk all over Loki like a bug on the sidewalk. And Loki is _still _being just as insolent and self-important as he usually is. Yep.

Steve stays oily, though (ha), and answers Loki's question, "Awesome. And you?" Loki is a little disappointed with Steve's pleasantry.

He's not a confrontational person. He really _isn't_. But that Steve can maintain his perfectly friendly front even after he's been spit in the face is pretty fucking infuriating.

"Wonderful," Loki lies, well aware of the way Thor and Tony are watching them like hawks. It's hilarious to think that both of them basically want to see Loki and Steve hug it out and call it a draw. Like that's going to happen, if Loki has anything to do with it.

But because the universe absolutely _loves_ to make sense (_no_), Steve says, a little abruptly, "Sorry for what happened at the party. I didn't know you felt that way."

Uhm, okay. Okay. What's going on?

Steve Rogers is _apologizing_ for Loki spitting in his face? Well, not exactly _that_, but you get the picture. He's saying sorry for something that nine out of ten people would say was Loki's error (seeing as he's the one who freaked out so badly). No, no, no. This is wrong. Steve Rogers _cannot _be the good guy here, _oh my God_.

And _because_ he can't be the good guy, Loki is going to play Humble Harry and frown, shake his head, and insist, "No, no. It's my fault. I shouldn't have overreacted."

It's a dick move of epic proportions, but it boosts his image in the eyes of Steve, Tony, _and_ Thor. Actually, Tony can probably see through some of the act, but it would be extraordinarily hard for him to get angry with Loki for making Steve like him again. Gosh, this is complicated.

Steve smiles (_ugghhhhh_), makes a trivial gesture with his hands and says, "It's no biggie." He's still mastering the superhero role in this situation, _goddammit_. Loki's going to remember this.

Before things can get incredibly awkward, Thor asks, "How long have you been waiting, brother?" The question is like a heaven-sent invitation to get out of there.

Loki pretends to think for a few seconds (just keep lying, just keep lying, just keep _lying_) before replying with, "Fifteen or twenty minutes." He says it like it's no big deal, even though he knows that Thor knows he'd be totally bothered by something like that.

Thor gets this taken aback expression on his face. He crosses his arms, clearly discomfited, quickly says, "Oh, I'm sorry, man."

Loki shakes his head flippantly, already reaching for his homework (that he's barely touched, and can you tell how badly he wants to leave now?), dismisses Thor's apology with, "It's okay. I had Tony."

It seems like the statement sets everybody _but_ its speaker on edge in entirely different ways, because Tony is suddenly and obviously ecstatic, and Thor and Steve look like they're two thirteen year-old girls witnessing some grand romance that melts their tender little hearts. It's quite hysterical, actually.

Loki stands, turns to Tony (who looks like he could take on the world right about now), and gives him this hint of a smile that's probably the equivalent of wiggling a feather in a cat's face. He spreads his arms, miraculously managing to keep his textbook balanced, and says with a touch of genuine sadness, "Bye, Tony."

Tony doesn't waste any time in getting to his feet and hugging Loki _tightly _(like, _ouch I can't breathe _tight), returning the goodbye with just as much if not more remorse. And _of course_ Thor and Steve are pretty much convinced that they're dating now, because they're standing there, practically weeping over their impending separation and embracing each other in a way that isn't exactly _friendly_. That doesn't mean Loki's not scared anymore (that doesn't just _go away_), but the contact feels good in a different way than it used to.

Thor is on the verge of bursting with questions when he and Loki walk back to the car.

* * *

"Not dating. Yeah, _right_," Thor scoffs as Loki keys the engine on. He's shoving his duffel bag in the backseat and generally being big and making noise.

Loki laughs at the grumble and starts to back out of his parking space, glancing at Thor for a moment as he does and replying, "We're _not_."

"I believe you," is Thor's heavily sarcastic retort. He pulls his blond, sweat-frizzed hair into a ponytail and fixes Loki with these laser-like eyes that are brimming with accusation and _liar, liar, pants on fire_.

"I'm glad you do," Loki throws back, and really, he's feeling so oddly smug and blithe about this whole thing. Maybe it's Thor's disgruntlement that's amusing him way too much. Maybe it's the unexpectedly successful encounter he had with Tony. Maybe it's the brand new Temper Trap CD (_fuck yes_) streaming from the it's the weather. Whatever _it_ is, it's like weed or something, because it makes Loki feel _great_.

Thor cranks his seat back like a million feet, reclining like you would on the sofa of God. He sighs, "Loki, you don't have to act so weird about it. It's okay if you're going out with someone."

Alright, Thor. You're really helping Loki's predicament (not).

"_You're_ the one who's acting weird about this," Loki points out, trying not to let himself get too aggravated with Thor's thorough abuse of his seat, "And why do you want me to date so badly? It's not important."

Thor makes this utterly surprised, dissenting noise and folds his arms behind his head, says, "Of course it's important. You'd be happy."

Okay, that was just _amazing_. Loki's going to savor that line forever and ever, _especially_ at times when he thinks he's going to kill Thor out of resentment. But, being as careful and guarded as he is with ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the general population (the point-one percent being Tony and Frigga), he won't show just how thrilled he is with Thor's statement. Instead, he asks, "Why do you say that?"

"Say what?" Thor goes. _Oh my God._

"That I'd be happy," Loki clarifies huffily, making a somewhat sharp turn because of the sudden spark of aggravation that lands inside him. He really does want to know why Thor would say such a thing, even though the reason is probably stupid as fuck.

"You'd get laid," Thor replies, and while the answer _is_ pretty fucking dumb, it also makes _a lot_ of sense. Loki actually agrees with him; sex _would_ be a plus and is psychologically proven to improve your general mood. Why is he talking with _Thor_ about this, though?

"Uhm, _okay_," Loki says as he approaches a stoplight. There's no one on the road, so he's tempted to just blow through the red light and keep on going. But he doesn't.

"But it's true!" Thor argues, waving his hands around in the air to emphasize his point, and really, he's _way_ too excited to be having a sex talk with Loki – _especially_ since the last hundred times he's tried to broach the subject (they were teenagers), Loki would run out of the room, screaming with his hands over his ears. Thor turns to look at him, asks, "Plus, what's a relationship without sex?"

"Potentially extraordinarily meaningful," Loki wryly retorts, but his heart really isn't in the answer as much as it seems to be. He's too busy thinking about what it would be like to have sex with Tony, which is weird considering he's driving a car and Thor is inches away from him. Loki has a very odd life.

Thor makes this irritated/reluctantly agreeing noise and says, "Alright, but what if the sex is bad?"

Again, _why are they talking about this?_ Especially when Thor is in one of the most unstable sexual relationships Loki's ever had the pleasure of witnessing. His thing with Sif is worse than that summer when Thor and Loki decided to make their parents' room their own. Frigga and Odin walked around each other like wolves for nearly the entirety of those two months until the former of them sent her sons off to her sister's house for a week. Loki and Thor came back to find two extremely mysterious, extremely happy people inhabiting their home.

"Then it's for shit," Loki immediately answers. He knows some individuals would say otherwise, but most people (including him) consider good sex a given. Okay, _what_?

"That's what I'm saying," Thor indicates. Wait.

"No it's not," Loki protests. It sounds really pretentious and haughty, the way he says that, but either he's totally confused by sex talk and sex thoughts or Thor has a hard time following his own train of thought. It's probably both.

"How can you tell me what I'm saying?" Thor asks, challenging, as the light turns green and Loki puts his foot on the gas.

"Like this: at first, you were saying I need to get laid to be happy, and now you're talking about how sex needs to be good in a rela–" Loki is speed-talking through this whole explanation before he just cuts himself off with, "_Why are we having this conversation?_"

"Good question," Thor replies. Wow, that helped.

Loki sighs heavily and takes one hand off of the wheel to run through his hair, says, "Look, don't worry about me dating Tony. It'll happen or it won't. And I don't know why you want me to do it so badly when every time you see Tony, you look like you're going to have a stroke."

There's a lengthy pause after Loki says that, broken only when Thor mumbles, "I didn't say I _wanted_ you to go out with him."

This sounds like a semi-argument the two of them had when they were sixteen and seventeen. It's just as embarrassing, too.

"Why does it _matter_?" Loki practically shrieks, because _honestly_, _why does it_? It really shouldn't, and Loki seriously thought that there was some sort of unspoken mutual agreement between them that he and Thor's sex lives were only their own business. Apparently not.

"It doesn't," Thor assures him a little too fast, and he's glancing out the window in the way he does when he doesn't want to talk about _subject x_ anymore. Because Loki isn't too keen on continuing the conversation himself, he decides to drop it. It's still going to bother him, though.

"Alright, then," Loki huffs, blinking hard and exhaling sharply to get rid of his nerves. Those are annoying, and they always show up at the wrong time (every time).

So then there's this uncomfortable silence between them because something that was kind of hilarious turned into a theoretical powder keg. They both overreacted, and that solely proves that if Thor and Loki have only one thing in common, it's their sensitivity. Well, to be more accurate, Thor's sensitive to Loki _alone_, really (maybe Sif as well, but that whole issue is pretty foggy right now), and Loki's more sensitive to Thor _than anything else_.

Loki is cradling his head in his hand, resting his elbow against the window and waiting at _another_ red light (jeeze, he hates those) when Thor suddenly asks, "Now, why do you always do that?"

Oh, shit. This smells like testosterone, and testosterone means an argument.

"Do what?" Loki snaps, but he really doesn't want to know or care. He's only focused on getting home and finishing his homework now.

"You build these walls around yourself every time someone tries to get to you," Thor says, and Loki can feel his hard blue eyes trained on him, "It's like as soon as I'm actually reaching you, you're suddenly a thousand miles away, and I don't know _what_ I did to make you go there."

Loki thinks of his conversation with Fandral from yesterday. He remembers the man starting to point out the very same thing and wonders, only half-jokingly, if the world is conspiring to tear him down. Silent, he drives through the now green traffic light.

"Shit, Loki, won't you _say _something?" Thor barks, "Are you mad?"

He is, in a weird way. It would be more correct to say that he's irritated.

"Are you embarrassed? What, Loki?" Thor goes on, his voice growing more insistent.

Embarrassed is the wrong word. Anxious would be better.

"Are you scared?" Thor asks. Ouch.

That's pretty much absolutely right. That's the reason why Loki first started doing this closing up and (almost) never letting people in thing. He's _scared_, always scared; scared that if he lets himself trust Thor, they'll end up in an accident more fatal and/or detrimental than the last one Thor landed them in; scared that if he takes his medicine, he'll be one of those emotionless, numbed creatures with the same disorder he has; scared that if he lets himself fall into a relationship with Tony (God knows he's already fallen in love; wait, did I just say that?), he'll fuck it up to an irreparable extent; scared that if he _doesn't_ take a chance with Tony, he'll start losing millions upon millions of awesome/cool/interesting/amazing points to Steve; scared that if he actually decides to see Steve in the way everyone else does, he'll be a zombie-like minion who lives under the law of Rogers; scared that if he goes home, like _home_ home, he'll be little Loki again, beloved of his mother and forgotten by his father, the _dark _son instead of the _golden_ son like Thor, tricky instead of grand, minor instead of important; scared that if people start to see the _wonderful_ things about him, his darker parts will only be that much more apparent because there are _so many_ of them; scared to love himself, because no one that counts does (Thor, Odin, Steve…).

"Loki, please," Thor is practically begging, and he's leaning out of his seat and towards Loki in a way that's just a little bit foolish considering what it's _doing_ to the man; that is, screwing with his focus and making his eyes water. Shit.

Loki makes a quick decision and turns sharply off of the road. He pulls into one of those weird little lots that seem to have no use for anything other than turning completely around. The sky is getting dark and home seems so far away.

Loki doesn't bother to turn the car off. He just lets one hand slide off of the wheel, balling the other into a fist against his cheek. Moisture (_damn it_, that moisture) pools in his eyes until it overflows, drips down onto his face. He sniffs wetly, and the only noise in the Elantra is the oddly and coincidentally fitting music playing, melancholy and slippery. Thor is watching him.

"Why do you cry like that?" Thor asks him, and the question sounds incredibly stupid to Loki.

"_How_ do I cry?" Loki whispers, blinking like his eyelids weigh a ton each. He gazes at a crow perched on a rather large shrub a little ways away, thinks about how he used to wish he could be a bird when he was little. His preferred choice was a magpie, honestly, but crows can tickle his fancy, too.

"Like you're a kid," Thor elaborates, and his voice is unmistakably angry, but with none of the hardness or volume that usually accompanies that such emotion, "Anything sets you off, and I don't get why. Is it me?"

Yes, and no. Loki doesn't know how to say that without telling Thor what only Frigga, Tony, and himself are aware of. Not even _Odin_ knows what makes Loki volatile in the way he only was when he was a child.

That doesn't mean Loki _wants_ to tell, though.

"Kind of," Loki replies, sucking in a harsh breath as he does. His eyes are stinging now, but he's far too used to the burn for it to really bother him. Isn't that sad?

"That makes _so_ much sense," Thor sighs sarcastically, his pissiness far more obvious in his tone. He's starting to not care about being cautious and tiptoeing around his feelings; Loki can tell. So he's going to attempt to ease into what Thor's trying to dig up.

"Do you remember what I was like, before?" Loki asks, and he tries hard not to look at Thor, afraid that if he does he'll only break down and sink further away from the man. Oh, yeah, because he's _scared scared scared_.

Thor takes a moment to think about the question and what it implies before he ventures, unsure, "Before the accident?"

This is like taking a scalpel to both of their ribs, because talking about _the accident_ is so touchy and difficult and dangerous, and how about more similes? It's like letting a wound heal almost completely only to rip the scab off, like dangling a match over gasoline, like teasing a wild animal.

Loki nods a bit in response to Thor's query. He wipes absently at his face, not actually caring for his appearance. The action is more habitual than conscious.

"Well, yeah," Thor answers like it should be obvious, and Loki speaks like a punctuation mark after his statement.

"Did I cry like this then?" he asks. The subtle punch in the way he says it seems to suck all the air out of the car like a vacuum, and Loki _knows_ Thor feels it, knows that Thor knows what he means by the question. Because it really isn't a question so much as it is a highlighter of the footnote at the bottom of the page that people like Thor don't bother to read because it's trivial, negligible, and not as large as the rest of the text.

When Thor finally speaks, his voice is an octave higher and a lot quieter than it usually is. He's nearly whispering, "Loki… _I _did that?"

Loki looks at Thor, then, because he's aware it has more impact than him just saying _Yeah_ or _Duh_. It's also easier than actually articulating the truth, even though he's going to have to do that eventually – _eventually_ meaning in a few minutes, maybe seconds. Thor is watching him with this terribly stunned, terribly pained expression on his face, like he can't, can't, _can't_ believe this is for real.

"What?" he blurts, smiling in a non-happy way. You know that moment when you can't help what your face is doing because you're so overwhelmed emotionally and mentally, so you end up making this expression that's an amalgamation of two completely different emotions and really doesn't make any sense? That's what Thor's doing right about now.

Loki makes a small noise that could be something like agreement, but he thinks he's kind of doing what he used to when they were kids and Thor would freak out. He'd turn into this mother cat or something, sit really close to Thor, and make this soothing sort of humming/purring sound in the back of his throat. It was a weird thing to do, but it would either make Thor laugh, calm him down, or both. But anyways, Loki says, "It's bipolar disorder."

Thor shakes his head a little bit, his face contorting into this horrified frown, and gasps, "I don't understand." And Loki knew he wouldn't.

"My… my doctor says it was always there…" Loki explains, running his fingers through his hair again, and this is almost physically painful for him to say, "But it never 'kicked-in' until after the accident."

And that's a significant reason why Loki distrusts and resents Thor so much, besides the circumstances of the accident itself. He was broken up enough on the outside (and still has the scars to prove it). To discover that the stress of the incident was enough to 'activate' a disorder that could have stayed forever dormant had the accident never occurred was probably the single worst thing that has ever happened to Loki. _Especially _because Thor wasn't afflicted with it, too, even though bipolar disorder is supposed to run in families and Thor was just as likely to have it lying around in his head, waiting to happen. _Especially _because when Loki had three metaphorical balloons in his hospital room, Thor had twelve, because when Thor was insisting he rest _just a week longer, mom_, Loki was out of bed attending school from six-to-two and therapy, both physical and emotional, from three-to-seven. _Especially_ because the price Thor paid for the accident was minimal jail time and about a month of bed rest, when Loki has to deal with this ungodly disease for the rest of his life, the repercussions that come with it, a minor fear of automobiles, and trust issues nearly impossible to overcome, and the accident _wasn't even his fault_.

This strangled noise comes from Thor's throat before he's looking down, murmuring, "I did that. I did that," like he's absolutely shocked at the magnitude of what Loki's saying, like he hasn't realized just _how bad_ the accident and its aftermath was until now, as if Loki blatantly hating him, ignoring him, and distrusting him so much hadn't made it obvious.

"You did," Loki says mutedly, and he's fixing to turn away from Thor when the man speaks again, pulls his attention.

"How could I do that?" Thor asks in a louder tone, looking up at Loki once more. He's not actually addressing his brother (he's probably just talking to himself), but Loki feels like he needs to answer the rhetorical question.

"I just told you," Loki replies, keying the car off and bringing his knees up to his chest. It's his default vulnerable and/or comfortable position, one he assumes whenever he's feeling small.

"Yeah, but…" Thor starts to say, narrowing his eyes and rerouting the conversation down a faster lane with, "Why didn't you say anything? You've been dealing with this for over _three years?_"

Loki shrugs a bit and rests his cheek against his knees, says, "Yes. It hasn't bothered you until now."

"That's because I _didn't know_ until now," Thor retorts, and while it sounds valid, it also sounds horrible.

"That's because you _haven't cared_ until now," Loki bites back, a small sob hooking at the end of the exclamation.

"_Don't _fucking say that!" Thor practically yells, moving almost indiscernibly into Loki's space. His eyes get tight at the corners and his mouth hangs slightly open; an expression of disbelief, doubt, grief. The sky is a rich, deep blue now.

Loki sniffs again, wipes at his eyes and goes quiet. The gesture apparently has some effect on Thor, because his face and posture softens just a bit.

"Look," Thor says, his voice much lower, "You have to tell me stuff like this, okay? Because I'm not as smart as you and I won't always notice things like _bipolar disorder_ unless you let me know."

That makes Loki a little upset, the way Thor said what he just did. It's hard to be certain whether Thor means every single word he says or is just lost in his emotion and talking out of his ass, but either way, his unusual self-deprecation is tugging at Loki's heartstrings.

"I'm _your brother_," Thor emphasizes, and he sounds like he's trying not to scream or cry (oh _God_), "Of course I care, I've always done that. When did you stop doing the same?"

Loki isn't sure which of the two of them Thor is referring to; it's most likely both brothers. And it's a sad question to ask, because while he hasn't _really _stopped caring about Thor (just because he didn't like him doesn't mean he didn't love him with all his heart), he convinced himself he did the same moment in which he ceased to care about himself.

"Too long ago," Loki whispers, gasping and whimpering with tears.

Thor stares at him for a moment, completely rapt, before he says, "You have to promise me something."

Loki doesn't hesitate. He replies, "Okay," without even considering how difficult it might be to uphold whatever oath Thor requests that he take. It just feels good to have a pact, you know?

"Promise me that you'll _stop hiding_. Promise that if something goes wrong you're gonna tell me," Thor demands, "Because I can't just sit around for years letting you slowly go crazy. I-I have to do something."

That's the way it's always been. Whenever Loki has a broken _x_ or a damaged _y_, Thor has to fix it, or at least play some part in making it better. It doesn't matter what it is or how hard it would be to repair this whatever; Thor _needs_ to fix it. Loki kind of hates himself for thinking that that attribute changed in Thor (but it's a little hard to believe that Thor is still Loki's minuteman after the personality adjustment he underwent when high school and college started happening).

Loki fails to verbalize his agreement. He only manages to nod a couple of times before any kind of self-discipline he has goes flying out the window and he's breaking down, sobbing loudly and crying freely. He's been reining this in since he first decided to look at Thor, and it feels fucking _wonderful _to let it out.

To be honest, Loki feels like if he was one of those people who refrained from tears at all costs, he'd be a lot more miserable than he is. It's like that beautiful exhale after you've taken a deep breath to cry, more effective in stress-relief than any wordy rant or detailed explanation Loki could spew.

Thor eventually moves across the center console to pull Loki into this awkward, one-armed hug that's probably the best he can manage in the limited space of the cockpit. Loki leans into Thor and just _cries_, like a child. Like a child.

The crow flies away.

* * *

**So, uhm. Yeah. That was awfully depressing. /headdesk **

**I promise that the story will start to take a positive turn after this. It will be gradual, but there won't be as much crying and emotional torture, okay? Okay.**

**By the way, the coincidentally fitting song that starts to play in the car is **_**Soldier On**_** by The Temper Trap. I only reread the story in parts, meaning, after I finished a large chunk, I would go back and read over it. Sorry if this is absolutely horrible. Also, did you guys guess the unrequited pairing? **_**Please**_** tell me you have, because I've been hinting at it for awhile and won't actually tell you what it is until a few more of these into the future.**

**Kudos to Andi, because she's my corner piece. ** **Reviews are very much appreciated, lovelies.**

**- Gabi.**


	12. Gridiron II

**Title:** Gridiron II, Otherwise Known as the Happiest Day of Loki's Life So Far.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~15,870  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, Thor, Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, Hogun, Steve Rogers, Jean Grey, _The Frost Giants _(_dun, dun, duuunnn_), a bunch of random X-Men, mention of other football players as well as some of Thor and Loki's family. Tony/Loki like _yeah_, onesided Fandral/Loki, mentioned Thor/Sif.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. Lots of blue-balling, lol. My horrible writing.  
**Summary:** The only thing that's keeping him _here_ is Tony's arm around his shoulders and the thought of how much Thor wanted him to come, enough to crawl into his bed and keep him from sleep for about an hour and a half with meaningless talk and childish prodding. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** This is the second part of the Gridiron series. I'm incredibly sorry for the amount of time that it took me to crank this out, but it kind of turned into a monster like _Like Toothpaste_. Plus, I progressively grew more and more critical of myself as I wrote; sorry, sorry. Anyways. I warn you that there is going to be _a lot_ of situations that could totally be considered cockblocking to you guys, a fuckload of tension (if you know what I mean) built here, and my writing is absolute shit.

* * *

He should be fired for this. If Professor X didn't like him so much (God knows why; he's not _that_ nice of a person, and Tony's constant messing with him at work doesn't help _at all_), he probably would have been the moment he called in '_sick'_ for a second day. Like that cover's going to hold up when the fraction of the student body that actually notices him will be able to testify that he was at the homecoming game. Maybe he can come in and work on Saturday.

Loki wouldn't have done this under any other circumstances, really. If he didn't love Tony to death _and_ feel this sudden, will-bending obligation to Thor (something he hasn't felt in years), he never would have lied his way out of work to attend a _sporting event_, much less to watch a game he doesn't understand nor does he _want_ to understand. But Tony sounds incredibly persuasive over the phone and when Loki's lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, and Thor's just so big and cute, like a teddy bear, when he begs. That's why he says _yes_. Mm-hmm.

One of the things that comes with not understanding football is not understanding why people care so much about it, and enough to _dress up_ for it. That seems just a little ridiculous to him, which is why Loki is questioning his decision to go along with this whole thing when he's sitting on Tony's bed, waiting for him to finish digging what-the fuck-ever out of his closet.

"I hope this doesn't turn out like the party," Loki says to no one in particular, propping an elbow on his knee and resting his jaw against his hand.

"What?" Tony calls, and he peeks around his closet door to give Loki an inquisitive look. Loki purposefully makes his expression more hangdog; even if he sort of-kind of _has_ been making an effort to cut down on his deceptive tactics (this is an extremely recent change, as in, _last night when he thought about how much better honesty would be_ recent), he's a naturally manipulative, devious soul.

"I said, I hope this doesn't turn out like the party," Loki repeats himself, and he quirks his lip in a way that's insolent but undeniably attractive, because old habits die hard and Tony is _really_ fun to play with. You know that amazing feeling you get when you're six years-old and in the schoolyard, playing a game of hide-and-seek with your best friend? That's what it feels like to mess around with Tony, except it's a lot better and a lot hotter.

"It won't," Tony replies simply, but not before smiling just a bit and returning to his enthusiastic search through his closet (that he _seriously_ needs to clean up), "You'll be with me the whole time, so you won't get raped or abandoned."

"You sure I won't get raped?" Loki jests easily, lazily moving to lie on his back with his legs pulled up. He grins, waiting for Tony to catch on.

"It's not rape if you like it," is Tony's cheeky, very suggestive response, and Loki doesn't try to stop himself from laughing outright. His snickering only stops when a blob of fabric lands on his face.

"There," Tony says as Loki lifts the red and gold jersey from his face with pinched fingers. Loki observes the shirt for a moment, taking in the _01_ printed on the back, the _ROGERS_ (oh my _God_) splayed across the shoulders. He could complain about all of that, but he chooses something a lot safer and more innocuous to criticize.

"It's too big," Loki points out, making a face at the jersey. Tony makes an irritated noise, and Loki swivels his head around to glance, pouting, at his friend.

"Everything is too big for you," Tony argues, and yeah, that's actually half-true (a hefty portion the stuff in Loki's own closet doesn't fit him right). It doesn't mean Loki's going to give up, though.

"I don't look good in red," Loki persists, however ridiculous that sounds. Is it obvious that he's pushing it?

Tony does this smirky, sarcastic thing with his face, leans over Loki and says, "You look good in anything."

Loki lifts a foot and presses it flat against Tony's stomach, preventing the man from moving any closer (and from putting him in a _very_ uncompromising situation). He lets the jersey rest on his chest as he whines, "My favorite number is nine."

Tony laughs, catches Loki's ankle in his hand and pulls him to the edge of the bed, rumpling the sheets under his back as he does. He basically ignores Loki's attempts at distance by bending at the waist and planting his hand next to the man's head, and _oh God_,Loki's going to die. Yeah, he's going to die. Thanks, Tony.

"Take your shirt off and put the jersey on, or I will," Tony orders in a deceptively calm voice. Loki knows him well enough to be certain that he's just cracking up on the inside, though, because how can he _not_ be getting the biggest kick out of making Loki, who is normally as cool as a cucumber, go fucking nuts because, uhm, _he's halfway between his legs _and pretty much _pinning him to the bed_. It's like foreplay, only worse because no sex follows.

"That might not be so bad," Loki teases, smiling slowly.

Now, if the script Loki's writing in his head actually plays out, what would basically happen is this: Loki uses Tony's grip on his ankle as leverage and hooks his leg around Tony's back, right? He forgets the jersey and kisses Tony, and Tony automatically chooses Loki over the game because _come on_, Loki is _way_ more important than football; agreed? So the game is obsolete and, at the risk of being risqué (ohoho), Loki and Tony occupy their time doing other things (cough_eachother_cough), Thor and Steve cry a river over the absence their cheerleaders, and everything is smooth sailing because this is a story for the ages.

But because this _isn't_ a story for the ages and Loki is still scared, still trying to make his brain do the job his heart is supposed to, things don't happen that way. Instead, Loki just watches Tony grin at him as he yanks his ankle out of his grasp, pushes the man up with a hand on his chest as he himself sits upright. He lets the touch linger, and _damn_, their flirting has never been _this _hot, never been so much _fun_.

(Fun Fact which also functions as an FYI: Don't doubt that Loki has always loved Tony, because he has, and it's obvious. He still loves him now for all the same reasons and, more or less, in the same way. But suddenly there's _this_: this sudden, random, unsettling passion that accentuates rather than alters the way he feels. To put it simply, as opposed to changing the flavor of the entire cake by adding an ingredient, there's just a different frosting, and more of it to boot.)

"I think I can manage to change my clothes on my own," Loki says, stretching the jersey between his hands in a deliberately coy manner. Where did the temperature go? Oh yeah, through the roof.

Tony raises an eyebrow and reaches forward to grasp the hem of the jersey in one hand, tugs at it and asks, "You sure you don't need help?"

Normally, Loki wouldn't care to have such a superficial conversation with someone. I mean, just _look_ at their words and their words only and tell me they don't read empty and pretentious. But then again, they really aren't empty if you consider how full of each other their speakers are, and Loki is very used to playing this game with Tony, if not accustomed to the actual dialogue. Tony's the one who can talk about nothing for hours and never tire of it; Loki supposes that's why they talk so flippantly so often.

"I'll give you a holler if I do," Loki replies. Before Tony can take advantage of the hold he has on him, Loki darts to the head of the bed and proceeds to slip his V-neck off. He replaces the discarded shirt with Tony's jersey, his movements intentionally slow. It's torture at it's very best.

"You're evil," Tony sighs as he makes his way to the connected bathroom, and Loki doesn't refrain from watching him like a predator watches prey, observing. If Loki walks like a cat, Tony walks like a panther. If Loki moves like a tango, Tony moves like a waltz. It's an interesting thing to notice.

"You still love me!" Loki calls after his friend, grinning felinely. He grabs his shirt from where it lies in a rumpled pile on the mattress, folds it neatly out of habit, and slides off of the bed to amble towards Tony's awfully untidy desk. Thinking of it only for a fleeting, inconsequential moment, Loki indiscriminately merges one stack of paper (that has a blueprint for another one of Tony's numerous, unfortunately discarded inventions on top) with another to clear a spot and place his shirt there. He digs through the top drawer of the desk, grabs a pastel green sticky note, and snatches a pen from the pencil cup, and it's almost hilarious how easily he can navigate Tony's workspace. No matter what kind of monster mess it morphs into, Loki can find what he's looking for with no trouble at all.

Anyways, Loki scribbles a note to Tony requesting that he return his shirt should it be forgotten (which it probably will be) in his slanted, thin handwriting. This is one of those moments when Loki really _hates_ his left-handedness, because it's forcing him to rest his whole arm on a pile of junk, and that's extremely uncomfortable. He sticks the note on the front of his shirt and puts the pen back in its proper place. Then he plops into Tony's desk chair and clicks his computer's screensaver off, only to be blinded by the suddenly bright _Lock_ screen.

"Tony, can I use your computer?" Loki loudly inquires, idly running his fingers over the keys. He asks because he knows that Tony changes his password every week or so.

"Yeah. The password is _Scarlett_, capital _S_ and two _t_'s," Tony replies from the bathroom.

Loki smiles a bit as he types the name in, asking, "Is there any reason behind that?"

"I remembered you talking about _Gone With the Wind_ awhile ago," Tony says, "Next week, I'm changing the password to _Rhett_."

Loki hums with amusement, pulling up Tony's internet browser (which is Firefox, by the way, versus the Google Chrome Loki has on his own computer) and methodically going through a list of actions he's come to automatically do every time he goes online:

1. Check his Facebook: No notifications; how surprising. A poke from Tony. An application request from Frigga to play _Mob Wars_ (oh my _God_) and an astrology update on his wall. There's also a lot of bullshit about the homecoming game and how excited everyone is for it in Loki's news feed.

2. Check his e-mail: Three spam messages (that should have been automatically discarded, _grr_), two annoying forwards from Frigga, and _oooh_, an actual e-mail from good-old cousin Freyr (who really isn't _that_ good and could be more accurately described as a self-interested, promiscuous douche). Loki swiftly reads over the message, discerns that Freyr is politely inquiring about how his school year has been, and _Is living with Thor as bad as I think it is lolololoooool?_, and _Have you finally gotten a girlfriend Keys? Or is it a boyfriend lolololoooooooool?_, and _When are you gonna have me over? Haven't seen you in forever _.

3. Check his _other_ e-mail: There's nothing interesting there.

4. Get on Tumblr: Loki is a bored Tumbler; meaning, he gets on when there's nothing else for him to do. Now he just scrolls down his dashboard and opens the reblog link for anything he finds interesting in a new tab, laughs at the funny things that pop up every now and then. His URL is _blue-skywalker_, and he has one hundred and sixteen followers.

Loki is in the middle of reading a wordy rant about beauty in society when Tony beckons him, calls, "Loki? I need a little help."

"Okay," Loki responds a little distractedly, rapidly skimming through the rest of the post before rising from his seat and walking over to the bathroom. He refrains from groaning and/or laughing when he sees just _what_ Tony is doing.

"I can't get my neck," Tony explains, automatically shoving a can of red body paint at Loki. Loki absently juggles the can, grinning a bit as Tony lifts his chin to expose a patch of bare skin surrounded by scarlet. He decides he's going to ratchet the tension up about a thousand notches simply because he can, and before he actually starts going to work on Tony (not in _that_ way, you perverts), he presses a quick kiss to the untouched spot on Tony's neck.

"Why don't you just marry me now, huh?" Tony asks with a trace of anxiety as Loki gives the can a vigorous shake and begins to spray its scarlet contents onto his skin.

"Because there's a fine line between work and play," Loki replies. He grasps Tony's shoulder with his free hand to steady himself as he covers half of the man's neck with paint, keeping consistent with the way his face is already decorated.

"Okay, less vague?" Tony prompts, watching Loki carefully. They both _love_ to be difficult, have you noticed?

Loki sighs quietly, clarifies, "Because it's a lot different to be serious than to fool around."

"And you're trying to figure out which one you like better?" Tony questions.

"Yes," Loki answers, pausing to shake the can again. He meets Tony's eyes as he does this, and _fuck_, Tony's doing that thing where he's turns into this marble statue and you can't tell _what _he's feeling, _ugh_. It's like something similar he does when he's drunk (remember?), but less intimidating and more infuriating.

"How do you know which one is better if you haven't done both?" Tony asks, and he briefly raises an eyebrow for emphasis. He's not saying this in an instigating or implicating way, and Loki _is_ thankful for that, but he has this ear-to-head filter thing going on that turns any interrogation into something deeper, simply because it seems like every time someone asks him a question, they're trying to say something in an indirect, inoffensive manner.

"Imagination," is Loki's response. He continues to spray past Tony's collarbone, staying carefully inside the imaginary line that splits Tony's body in two.

"Good answer," Tony acknowledges. He shifts a bit, ticklish (but not like Loki, oh _God_ no), as Loki begins to spray his shoulder, his arm, his side. He laughs, "I didn't ask for all this."

"But you wanted it," Loki points out, stopping to walk around Tony and jiggling the spray can. He slides his hand around Tony's shoulder to accommodate his new position, watches the way Tony twitches almost imperceptibly when he glances sideways at him.

"And you're just all about what I want," Tony jokes, smirking for a moment before turning away. Was there some wistfulness in that? Maybe a little. Not enough to worry Loki; Tony is always a bit melancholy, when you think hard about it. If you look at his eyes as often as Loki does, it's tough _not_ to notice as well as tough to be terribly affected by it.

"You know it," Loki throws right back before he starts to cover half of Tony's back with red. Tony goes still and silent as Loki meticulously finishes his task, only shifting when the man grazes a sensitive area with the spray.

After he's sufficiently pleased with his paint-job, Loki moves to drop the can on the counter. He points at a nearly identical container marked with gold and inquires, "You need me to do the other half?"

Tony grabs the can and starts to shake it, grinning in a way that looks forced but really isn't because he's _Tony_ and has a tendency to make expressions like that. He says, "I got it. Unless I have trouble with my neck again, I think I'm fine."

Loki returns the smile and pushes himself up on the marble countertop, asks, "Do you mind if I get on my soapbox?"

"Go ahead, man," Tony says as he snatches up a color-spattered rag and sprays liquid gold into it. He dabs the paint on his clean cheek as Loki begins to speak.

(Fun Fact: If you're wondering why Loki talks so much around Tony, it's for two reasons. One: they're best friends, _duh_. Two: Loki doesn't feel as comfortable with anybody else, save his mother, to just peel away any inhibitions he has and speak his mind, relentlessly. Even Frigga makes him pause and consider his words every now and then, because she's very similar to most people in the way she automatically forms opinions about what he says whether she means to or not. Tony doesn't do that. Tony just absorbs the information and, if Loki urges or it's appropriate in a Tony sort of way, offers his input. There's no boundary between what Loki is saying and what's proper or acceptable to Tony, because when Loki loses his restraints, Tony loses his prejudices. Not even Frigga can make Loki feel so secure with talking about anything and everything. Loki doubts anyone ever will, even Thor.)

"I think it'd be fun to get some fluorescent paint and a couple of black lights and go crazy," Loki says, scooting back against the mirror behind him.

"I think I have some fluorescent paint in the basement," Tony comments, closing his eye to rub paint over the lid, "I'm not sure about the black lights, though."

"We need to look for that," Loki replies, leaning his head into the glass. He pauses for a moment and lets his mind wander until it settles on another topic, then says, "Have you ever thought about what it would be like to fall asleep and not wake up for a long time?"

"Did you know that people who sleep more than eight hours a day are more likely to develop Parkinson's?" Tony asks instead of answering, and when Loki deftly hooks a toe in one of his belt loops and yanks him against the counter (he's got mad ninja skills, you see?), he chuckles, "Sometimes. Why?"

"Because it would be great to just live in your head for month or so, then wake up to find everything different," Loki muses, watching Tony take the gold-marked paint can and start to carefully spray his neck.

"I think it would be confusing," Tony says over the obnoxious noise of the atomizer.

"Only because you'd have to learn about everything you missed," Loki indicates, "But that's part of what makes it so interesting."

"You _could_ just go back to sleep," Tony puts in, making a face in the mirror at the spot he's missing on his neck, _again_.

"True," Loki agrees, and he scoots down the counter so that's he's in front of Tony, takes the can from his hands, and tips his chin up with a gently pushing finger. He easily covers the exposed patch of skin as well as the rest of Tony's neck before he's handing the paint back and returning to his previous location.

"_Thank you_," Tony drawls in an exaggerated fashion, smirking at Loki.

"You're very welcome," Loki says, switching back into talk-mode with, "Why do you think people have different voices?"

"It's in their DNA," Tony answers simply.

"Well, everything is in a person's DNA," Loki protests, runs a hand through his hair, "But _why_? Why do parents and their children have different voices even though they share pieces of DNA? Why is it possible for a mother with a deep voice to give birth to a daughter with a high voice?"

"Because their vocal strings are tuned differently like a guitar," Tony snarks, shrugging as he sprays across his shoulder, "I have no idea. Ask your anatomy teacher next semester."

"Why do people have different accents, I wonder?" Loki goes on, "I mean… a piece of land can't tell you to talk a certain way as soon as you get there."

"Maybe it has to do with the way the native language is spoken," Tony says, even though he knows Loki's brain is working at high-speed and is probably not going to slow down too long for his reflections unless he says something completely ridiculous.

"But people in England and America both speak English, and _they_ have different accents," Loki points out, "And people in France and Canada both speak French, and _they_ have different accents. And words are spelt differently, and the same words mean different things."

"That's because of slang," Tony informs.

"Yes, but _why_?" Loki asks. He's aware that he's being overly critical and tricky, but Tony doesn't care, and he's on a roll. He says, "Did you know that in France, _les gens_ means _the people_, but in Louisiana, _le monde_ means the very same thing? And _le monde_ means _the world_ in proper French."

"Maybe the language got distorted over time," Tony says, "It's not like the Cajuns could telephone France and ask what this means and what that means, and remember that French was passed down from generation to generation, which got harder to do when the English and Spanish assholes came down to Louisiana and made everyone speak _their_ language."

Loki stops at that, looks hard at Tony. He smiles at the deduction, mostly since he already knew all of that (it was one of the first things his middle school French teacher covered when she talked about the difference between proper French and Cajun French), and also because part of the reason why he pulled the language card was to prompt Tony into saying something brilliant like what he just did. See what I mean about it being fun to play with Tony?

"What?" Tony asks when he meets Loki's eyes, and the question only makes Loki smile more.

"I was just thinking about genes," Loki lies, but _oh!_ it's another wonderful, random thing to talk about.

"You look at me and you think of _genes_?" Tony questions, voice full of skepticism, "And I'm assuming you're talking about _trait_ kind of genes and not the designer ones I have in my closet."

Loki chuckles with pleasure, toes at Tony's thigh and replies, "_Yes_, I'm talking about traits, and _yes_, I thought of genes. You have very good ones."

Tony's expression softens into an exasperated smile as he says, "I got all of them from my dad."

"I'm sure you didn't," Loki eases, well-aware that Tony hates seeing his father every time he looks in the mirror. That must hurt. Loki tilts his head a bit, says, "I thought your father's eyes were blue."

Tony pauses and watches Loki before he muses, "You're right."

Loki thanks a higher power for his awesome memory (Honestly, the only time he's ever seen Howard Stark was when he was looking through pictures on Tony's computer and found an image of a much younger Tony sandwiched between who could only be his parents. The main reason why Loki opened the file in the first place was because he thought that Howard actually _was_ Tony judging from the thumbnail; the stance and appearance of the man was almost startlingly identical to his son's.), goes on, "You have your mother's eyes."

"Hers are darker," Tony argues as he sprays down his chest and abdomen, "My eyes probably come from her side of the family, though."

"What are you?" Loki asks, and when Tony gives him a funny look, he clarifies, "Ethnically, I mean."

"Irish and Russian on my dad's side, Italian and Scottish on my mom's," Tony answers, "I don't know if it shows or not."

"The Italian does," Loki says, idly swinging his legs. He usually doesn't do that, thinking it looks ridiculous, but Tony doesn't care, so he won't either.

"What about you?" Tony questions as he sprays up his side.

"English and Australian from Father and Italian and Irish from Mother," Loki replies after a moment of thought, mocking Tony with, "I don't know if it shows or not."

Tony briefly studies his face, assesses, "I can see the English in you."

Loki makes this irritated noise and says, "The English are the most blandly-featured people in the world."

Tony raises his eyebrows in protest and shakes his paint can as well as his head, disagrees, "Some English people are fucking gorgeous, Loki. You being one of them."

"I'm technically _not_ English," Loki says, and he can't help but grin at the unexpected and _amazing_ compliment.

"But you have English heritage," Tony points out (jeeze, look at how many times they've said _English_ in the last couple of minutes). He pushes the can in his hand at Loki, asks, "Can you get my back?"

Loki nods and takes the can, gestures for Tony to come closer and turn around. He starts to cover the naked half of Tony's back with gold paint and prompts, "Do you know what I wonder about sometimes?"

"What's that?" Tony asks.

"Why I don't look like _anyone_ in my immediate family," Loki says, "You've seen Mother, you've seen Thor, and I think I've shown you a picture of Father, right?"

"You have," Tony confirms, trembling sensitively when Loki sprays just under his shoulder blade. It's a little peculiar that he hasn't actually met Odin yet, considering he's been to Loki's childhood home about seven times before. Granted, five of those visits were paid late at night, when Odin was fast asleep and Frigga was being the covert double-agent she usually is, and Loki was terrified because Tony was on the verge of overdosing and very, _very_ sick. The other two times were in the middle of the day and served as initiation ceremonies for Tony; Frigga was dead-set on welcoming him into their family when he didn't have anyone else playing that part for him.

"I don't look like them," Loki sighs, frowning a bit, "They all have creamy or golden skin and light hair. Look at _me_."

"I do, very often. It's pretty fun," Tony puts in, choosing to ignore the figurative nature of Loki's statement. He says this to add light to the situation, but it doesn't really help.

Loki disregards Tony's comment in turn and goes on, "I was born with raven black hair and snow white skin. What went wrong with _my _genes?"

"Maybe you were one of those babies that got all the rare, hidden traits in your family's gene pool," Tony says, "Do your grandparents look like you?"

Loki shrugs a little even though Tony can't see him, replies, "Not my maternal ones, which are the only ones I've ever met. My cousin looks a little like me, though."

"See?" Tony hums, glancing over his shoulder when Loki ceases his spraying. After a quick glance in the mirror, he realizes that Loki is finished and turns to face his friend.

"But he's… built just like everyone else in my family," Loki says, dropping the paint can next to him on the marble, "Strong and tall."

"You're tall," Tony points out, scratching through his paint-flecked hair.

"And thin as a toothpick, with not a trace of physical eminence to be found," Loki argues. It's like there's two things that set him apart from his family for every one attribute he might happen to share with them. You know those pictures and lists you would get in school, where you'd have to pick out which item didn't belong with the group? Loki feels like he's playing that game every time he looks at a family picture, and the answer is always himself.

"There has to be _someone_ in your family like that," Tony says with a scowl, watching Loki with the most despondent expression on his face.

"There isn't," Loki insists, "They're all athletic and golden and built like Greek gods, and I'm bookish and dark and built like–"

"A supermodel?" Tony interrupts. Before Loki can squabble anymore, he moves to stand in front of him, holds the man's hands against the countertop and says, "Forgive me for cutting this short, but I _really_ don't like it when you do this self-loathing thing."

"I don't hate myself," Loki protests, and that's only somewhat true. Sometimes, like now, he really _doesn't_ despise himself. Other times, he can't _stand_ the fact that he exists.

"No?" Tony replies with doubt obvious in his voice, because he knows perfectly well how Loki can be self-deprecating, untruthful, or both of these things at once.

"I just… I'm expressing unhappiness with my apparent inability to fit in with anyone, especially my family," Loki explains, looping his legs loosely around Tony's waist and tugging him closer. Tony automatically obliges, always eager to be as close as possible to him.

"That just means you're unique, Loki," Tony offers, smiling a little. This is a pretty good example of reason number thirteen why Loki loves Tony Stark: no matter how negative he can be about absolutely _anything_ (and Tony _can_ be that way), most of all himself, he'll always find something positive in Loki.

"Have I ever told you about the time Thor and our cousins put me on trial and found me guilty of _bossiness_, _delinquency_, and _general tomfoolery_?" Loki asks abruptly, the memory springing to mind in light of the general thoughts of alienation and estrangement floating through his head. What makes this particular event stand out so much in his psyche is the period in his life in which it happened (he was ten years-old, and can you imagine what that kind of instigation does to a child that young?) and the fact that it was the first time he'd ever felt _different_ from Thor and his cousins in a way that wasn't good.

Tony makes this ridiculous face, laughs almost guiltily and says, "No?"

Loki concedes, "I'll have to tell you that story one day."

"Why not today?" Tony asks, absently drumming his fingers against the tops of Loki's hands. Agitation; he wants a cigarette.

"Because we're on a schedule," Loki replies, nodding towards the clock next to the doorway. Tony twists his upper body around to glance at the time for a moment before looking back at Loki and shrugging airily.

"We'll make it on time. Plus, I'd choose listening to you talk over a football game any day," Tony says, smiling in the cavalier way he does when he's flirting. That implies that he doesn't mean what he's saying and is only saying it to gain Loki's favor, _or_, that he _does_ mean what he's saying and is being playful about it. There's a fifty percent chance of either of these being true, because Tony and Loki are very alike in the way they lie and charm others into pleasing them.

"You're wonderful. Don't stop," Loki teases right back, pulling his hands free and reaching to rest them at the base of Tony's neck. This is where Loki fares better at his job of perpetually beguiling his '_victims_'; he's a lot smoother and a lot more willing to touch.

Tony's back straightens as he says, "I know what you're doing." He's watching Loki's face carefully now, searching for tells.

The funny thing is, Loki doesn't have any.

"Tell me what I'm doing, then," Loki hums, dragging Tony even closer to him, if possible, until the man's abdomen hits the edge of the counter. He tightens his legs around Tony's waist, and _oooh_, he's never done anything like _that_ before. That's kind of why he's doing it, actually.

"You're trying to distract me," Tony replies with an air of matter of fact-ness, like he automatically knows he's right simply because he can say he is. One of the weird things about Tony is his self confidence, which is like the Colossus of Rhodes in the way it has the capacity to be massive and sturdy, yet inevitably torn down. Right now it's in the _massive and sturdy_ phase.

"Wrong," Loki laughs, moving his hands up into Tony's hair. Tony's focus falters at that, and he gets this slightly glazed-over look in his eyes that wouldn't be apparent if Loki wasn't looking for it, trying to draw it out. Loki brushes his fingers over Tony's scalp, falls in love with the way it's driving Tony wild. This is a good sign.

"Well, you're succeeding at doing just that," Tony groans, moving his hands to rub up Loki's back. He's tracing his digits over the knobs of Loki's spine through the thin jersey he wears (which smells _so much_ like Tony, so much that it's almost illegal that he should be doing this), and _yeah_, that feels _really_ nice.

Loki doesn't respond by speaking. He's heeding Tony's words from earlier when he cranes his neck and kisses the man, firm and deep. Thank God the paint is dry.

Tony emits one of those ridiculous noises he makes when Loki decides to do something crazily, intensely physical and _way_ past the line of friendship, like now. His grip tightens on Loki's back, and there's no hesitation or uncertainty when he sucks at Loki's bottom lip, licks along the rim of his mouth. Where Tony used to exercise caution or something like it whenever things like this happened, he apparently doesn't care that much anymore. Loki thinks it has to do with the fact that Tony knows he has him wrapped around his finger now.

And Loki is sliding his tongue into Tony's mouth with a breathy moan (_guh_, that's got to be the hottest thing that's ever happened to him, including that time he and Thor burned themselves and got candle wax and blood on the ceiling) when a thought comes slamming into him like a goddamn train, throwing him completely off-track and unsettling him like nobody's business. Fuck hyperactive minds.

What if he ends up not wanting this? As hard as it is to believe that he might not become addicted to Tony like a drug, you never know what kind of feelings could surface after something like a kiss spirals out of control and turns into a much bigger monster. But then, you have to think about Steve and Thor, who are the only reasons why Tony and Loki are even going to this ridiculous homecoming game instead of taking advantage of the night and of each other (always count on them to be the sea keeping Tony and Loki apart). Steve and Thor are huge excuses for Loki and Tony, respectively, to get together as well as to not. Also, this feels _amazing_; too amazing to lose and stay mentally healthy.

_That's_ why Loki is doing this. This isn't a playful kiss. This is sampling.

Loki pulls away, sighing heavily. He and Tony are both panting a little bit, and Loki thinks that the way oxygen seems to escape them whenever they're this close means _something_.

"That didn't feel like _fooling around_," Tony gasps, fixing Loki with a look that says _You better explain that or I'm never going to let you live this down_.

"That's because it wasn't," Loki replies, moving his hands out of Tony's hair and pushing the man away so he can slide off of the counter. Tony's expression morphs into a blatant _What the fuck?_ face.

"What?" Tony asks, and before Loki can make a move of any kind, he plants his hands on the edge of the marble at either side of the man, effectively trapping him.

"I'm using my imagination," Loki says, makes use of his awesome persuasive skills and curls his forefingers in the front of Tony's waistband; that's all it takes, and Tony's gone again, "You asked me how I'd know whether I liked being serious or playing games better if I didn't do both, didn't you?"

Tony nods, relocating his hands to Loki's hips (they're getting bolder with every touch, can you tell?) and sighing, "I think I remember that."

Loki smirks, explains, "_That's_ what I'm doing." He mimics Tony and grasps the man's hips, uses the leverage to make a one-hundred and eighty degree turn and push Tony against the counter. Then, because he's an eternal coward and a ruthless tease, he walks away, out of the bathroom. Harsh move, man.

"Loki, you can be horrible sometimes, you know that?" Tony calls after him, and because he's sort of following Loki as he says this, his voice fluctuates in volume in that weird way that lets you know how far you are from a person. He stops in the doorway of the bathroom and watches Loki plop down on his bed.

"If I'm so dreadful, why do you keep me around?" Loki asks. They're slipping back into that plastic-y talk from earlier, losing that heavy, hot weight that regularly decides to drop in and crush them.

"That's a stupid question," Tony huffs, crosses his arms, "You know why."

Loki nods ruefully, and really, this situation _isn't_ as sad as it seems to be. It _isn't_, especially because it was bound to happen. He says, "I do."

* * *

Tony smokes while he drives. He also tells Loki to stop messing with his face, because he's touching his cheeks and turning his fingers black.

"You're going to mess the lines up," Tony says around the cigarette in his mouth. His hair is streaked with the colors that are all over his body, and he looks like a red and gold titan-turned-what? Redneck? Too harsh, and Tony could _never_ look like a redneck, honestly. Surfer? That might be more accurate, especially considering where he comes from (which is Malibu). I'm just going to go ahead with football stan, even though Tony really _isn't_ a huge football fan at all. He enjoys the hype more than the game, actually. Anyways.

"Good," Loki replies, flipping the sun visor down to check out his reflection. The thick black lines on his cheeks are just as they were when Tony grabbed him and smeared them on; dark, straight, and useless. He's not going to be on the field kicking the other team's ass, so _why_ does he need this shit?

Tony blindly reaches over and folds the visor back up in a way that's so flawless and precise you could shoot yourself in the face. As Loki turns to glower at him, Tony's hand briefly moves to rub under his chin, perfectly aimed even while the man watches the road. He says, "Leave it alone. It's fine."

"Just because you're all made up doesn't mean I have to be," Loki protests, catching Tony's retreating wrist in his hand and pressing his thumb against his radial artery (aka, those thick veins that bulge from your arm; your pulse point).

"Sure it does," Tony throws back. He lets his arm go limp in Loki's grasp instead of pulling it away, plucks his cigarette from his mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke when he brings the truck to a stop.

"Who says?" Loki challenges. It's a petty, immature question he used to ask Thor all the time just to prove him wrong. It always worked.

"_I_ say, and you know I'm always right," Tony teases, glancing at Loki and giving him this arrogant smirk that's both charming and annoying as fuck.

"Oh, yes. Anthony Stark is _always_ right," Loki says, letting go of Tony's hand and lowering the sun visor again. It's kind of a bitchy thing to say when Tony hates his given name _so __**much**_ (like, he seriously _loathes _it), but Tony knows better than anyone how to identify a joke.

"Damn straight," Tony laughs. He watches Loki glare at his reflection and smokes his cigarette, grinning the whole time.

When they get to the football field, everybody is fucking _wild_. There are people who are costumed much crazier and much worse than Tony, noise is _everywhere_, and the whole area is teeming with life and movement. On the visitor side of the field is a whole other student body, generally calmer and quieter than EU's matriculates.

Loki feels like a leper or a pariah as Tony leads him through the mass of screaming, laughing, talking people to the ticket window, because he's too quiet and too weird and too horribly uninterested in _everything_ going on around him. The only thing that's keeping him _here_ is Tony's arm around his shoulders and the thought of how much Thor wanted him to come, enough to crawl into his bed and keep him from sleep for about an hour and a half with meaningless talk and childish prodding.

Loki and Tony are in line for tickets when somebody _stabs_ Loki in the back with their finger, or some other kind of pointy appendage, and I say _stab_ because the '_poke_' is hard enough to hurt a_ whole fucking __**lot**_. _And_, you _don't_ touch Loki when he least expects it. Hell to the fuck no.

So Loki's fixing to whirl around and maul a motherfucker when another arm (physical contact, _ugghhh_) slides around his torso and there's a voice in his ear going, "Hey, kitten."

Guess who?

Now, just to be clear, touching Loki like _that_ is a really stupid thing to do when he's with Tony, and so close to him, too. Lots of people know that Tony is actually pretty insane, and that's why it's common sense to not get on his bad side. When you do, he'll ruin you in some kind of way. This one time last year, Clint and Bruce trashed his car and ended up with Nair in their shampoo as well as their own vehicles completely murdered out and with slashed tires; Tony even wrote letters to them and stuck them to their windshields like parking tickets. Emma Frost once blackmailed him into taking the blame for vandalizing the science building. Tony miraculously got a hold of pictures of her and Angel Salvadore making out and e-mailed them to everyone he knew at EU in retaliation. When Loki asked him how he managed to do such a thing, Tony only told him that it involved a lot of alcohol and serenading.

In short, you don't fuck with Tony Stark. And, as we all know, fucking with Loki is equivalent to fucking with Tony, and vice-versa, in both of their books.

Tony's arm flies off of Loki's shoulders, and he's moving to confront the situation as Loki sighs, "Hello, Fandral."

Yes, it's Fandral. Yes, Loki's still uncomfortable with the man _touching _him (only because he knows how Fandral actually _wants_ to touch him). Yes, suddenly he's surrounded on all sides by _Thor's_ friends, who have spontaneously decided to make it their life's mission to become his BFFs. Yes, Tony's face gets a little surprised, taken aback, and intimidated by Loki's position, squished between Fandral and Volstagg (who both have their bodies painted like Tony's, but in a much sloppier style). Yes, Tony looks a little hurt, and this is horrible because Loki's stuck in a _This isn't what it looks like, please believe me oh God_ situation.

"Thor got you to come out!" Fandral laughs, Volstagg echoing his airy chuckling soon after, and Loki really wishes the former would let him go, because, by the expression on his face, Tony's going to _die_ if he doesn't get Loki back all to himself. It's like Fandral has stolen Tony's favorite toy and the world is ending because of it.

"Tony did, too," Loki replies a little roughly, looking Fandral directly in the face. He does that to hide the insecurity and discomfort he truly feels, to please Fandral with his supposed full attention. He says that to relocate Fandral's focus to Tony, to tell him that _hey, my best friend that's more special than you is right there _and_ you'll soon discover that he's not too happy_, and to indirectly let Tony know that _I'm only for you_.

Fandral looks over to Tony, then, and Loki is expecting one of two reactions from the man. The first of these is this pseudo-aggressive front most males do when their '_territory_' is threatened, where words become sparse and glaringly hostile. The second is super-duper friendliness. Loki is personally betting on the first.

But, no, it turns out to be the second, because Fandral grins and asks, "You're Tony Stark?" This is a little funny that they're introducing themselves when a week ago, Tony _shoved_ Fandral against a mob of people to get to Loki. Remember that at the party? I bet Fandral does. Also, you have to take into account that Tony probably still wants to kill Fandral for kissing Loki, because he hasn't heard about their little heart-to-heart thing or whatever the hell that was.

Tony blinks, and only the minute clenching of his jaw tips you off to how _antagonistic_ he's feeling right now. He replies, in a voice so lukewarm it _hurts_, "That's my name. I don't think I've ever heard of _you_."

Okay, Tony. We know you know that you're semi-famous (for being crazy and _rich_) around campus. You don't have to act like an asshole about it.

But he's only being a prick because Fandral is walking all over his '_turf_', and while Loki doesn't enjoy being viewed as a prize to be won, he knows that Tony is wired to think that way in situations like this.

Fandral doesn't take any offense to the comment, surprisingly (Loki's pretty sure it's because he doesn't mind Tony's opinion of him), and he goes ahead and identifies himself with, "I'm Fandral, a friend of Thor and Loki."

Uhm. Since when are Loki and Fandral _friends_? Just because Loki can have a pleasant conversation with you and you can spill your guts to him doesn't imply that you're his friend. Anyone that knows Loki knows that words mean almost nothing to him. Only actions count. Plus, at the risk of repeating myself, Tony is harboring homicidal feelings towards Fandral that, as far as he knows, Loki shares. He's probably convinced that Fandral's a lying bastard, now.

Loki watches as Fandral steps forward and holds his hand out for Tony to shake, letting go of him as he does, _thank God_. Tony stares between the man's hand and his face with a passive expression, like he's honestly not at all interested in being polite. When he glances at Loki for a moment, Loki fixes him with this look that says _Behave, please_, because he really doesn't want Thor's friends to think Tony is some loaded, well-to-do shithead that doesn't care for people that much (which he kind of is, but let's just say he isn't). They could go complaining to Thor about that, and, while Loki is pretty fuzzy about how his brother actually feels about Tony right now (he's guessing it's some kind of negative, though), he doesn't want Thor to hate the man in the event that they start fucking. In the house that they share. And loving all over each other. Again, _in the house that they share_. You understand, right?

So Tony takes Fandral's hand and gives it a firm shake, smiles in that somewhat-forced but aesthetically pleasing way he can and says, "Nice to meet you."

And then Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif make a show of introducing themselves to Tony, which is hilarious considering that Tony has heard horrible things about them coming from Loki's mouth, and they've heard ridiculous things about him from the rest of the student body. They don't need to get to know each other _at all_.

While this lengthy introduction takes place, Loki slowly gravitates back to Tony for the sake of both of them. This is all but ruined when the person in front of them in line _finally_ gets their ticket, and Tony is forced to address the freshman in the window (which is Bobby Drake, by the way). Fandral and Sif aren't slow to jump on Loki in when he's in neutral, Switzerland status.

"So you like football?" Fandral asks. You know that bad feeling you get when you think you're bothering someone by talking to them too much? Imagine that the person you're talking to feels _exactly_ how you think they do. That's Loki right now.

"Not really," Loki answers truthfully. He's not looking at Fandral as he says this; instead, he's observing the elegant arc of Tony's spine, so like the subtle _S_ curve that Greek and Roman statues exhibit. Oh my God, _why_ hasn't he tapped that yet?

"No?" Sif chuckles, and really, that's the first time she's ever _laughed_ and Loki's been there to see it. It's enough to make him tear his eyes away from Tony to look at Sif as she crosses her arms, questions, "You're one of those sensitive, reserved types, aren't you?"

This is new. This is _very _new. Not only is Sif being _pleasant_ and _open _(Loki's mostly only been around her when she's acted in a curt and tough manner or was eating Thor for breakfast), but she's _cute_. Not to say she was never attractive before, because _believe me_, Loki had to look twice the first time he saw her, what with her statuesque body and striking features. But right now, Sif's wearing this red tank top decorated with _sparkly _gold paint or something, with scarlet and yellow ribbons knotted on the straps, threaded through the hem, and tied in her hair. She has on a pair of shorts that look like they came from Forever 21 and gold eyeliner, _gold eyeliner_, framing her eyes, and frankly, it's the most overtly _feminine_ Loki's seen her since they first met. She looks like she could be a cheerleader, or something like it.

"That sounds like me," Loki evenly replies, and he tries not to make it too apparent that he's _really_ fucking surprised with Sif's appearance. He vaguely remembers Thor telling him about how glad he is that Sif is just like one of the guys, that she doesn't have estrogen oozing from her pores and is still sufficiently _female_, if you know what I mean. Volstagg bursts into laughter at something Hogun said behind Loki, Sif, and Fandral.

And then, before anyone can say anything further, Tony turns around with two tickets in his hands, and Loki's attention span for Fandral and Sif diminishes a whole fucking lot.

"Voila," Tony drawls as he hands Loki a ticket, easily sliding his arm back around Loki's shoulders and pulling him away from the line. Ha, so much for friendliness. Now the Four Dwarves most likely believe that Tony is a possessive bastard (which again, he kind of is).

"Wait for us, okay?" Fandral _has_ to call after them as Tony is steering Loki towards the wide, crowded ramp leading up to the actual stadium. Jesus Christ, Fandral has serious potential in a career of trollin'.

Just so Tony doesn't explode, Loki calls over his shoulder, "We're just going to get good seats!" He doesn't bother listening for a response, because he really doesn't give a damn whether or not Fandral is satisfied with his actions.

Here's the thing: Loki came to this football game for two reasons and two only, and their names are _Thor_ and _Tony_. He's not going to sit around and trivialize this whole thing, or something. Basically, he wants to focus all of his attention on Tony and Thor; not Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun.

"Okay, since when are you best friends with the resident rapist around here?" Tony asks with an edge of bitterness as he and Loki hand their tickets to one of a couple of students at the top of the ramp. Alison Blaire shoots Tony this bewildered look that he counters with a cocky, _Get the fuck out of my face_ smirk, and Kurt Wagner silently grins at the exchange.

"We're not best friends," Loki insists, taking in his surroundings. People are swarming the bleachers like lemurs in a tree, shouting in their excitement and darting around in a way that's pretty dangerous considering the setting and high probability for accidents. A few students are selling food and drinks at the bottom of the stands. The cheerleaders are clustered together at the edge of the field below, idly stretching and conversing between themselves. And the student body of Snow University, the visiting school, lies across the pitch like a pack of wolves on a distant tundra, their colors of blue and white contrasting with the bright red and gold on the home side. Their cheerleaders almost look like toy soldiers from where Loki stands.

"Uh-huh," Tony replies skeptically, making his way up the bleachers, "'Cause it totally didn't look that way to me. Oh, _no_."

Loki consciously reminds himself that Tony can be pretty jealous when he wants to be as he follows the man, says, "Fandral apologized to me on Wednesday. I guess that made him think he was allowed to molest me again."

"Smart logic, man," Tony snarks, glancing back at Loki for a moment.

"I never said I _enjoyed_ what he's doing or that I forgave him," Loki snaps. They're nearing the top of the bleachers as he sighs, "Stop growling at me, would you? I didn't expect Thor's brigade to jump on me, and I don't know why they did. I've been anything but nice to them."

And that's exceptionally, almost scarily true. Loki hasn't shown an ounce of kindness to the lot of Thor's friends since they began their speedy takeover of his house, possibly excluding what happened on Wednesday. He doesn't smile at them. When he talks to them, it's in terse and cold statements. When he looks at them, his eyes are daggers. So it doesn't make sense _why_ they're so interested in becoming buddy-buddy with him, unless Thor asked them to or they're horrible at catching a hint, of course.

Tony pauses a beat, moves down to the edge of the very top bleacher and says, "Sorry. Sorry, Loki. That was pretty dickish."

"That it was," Loki agrees a bit emphatically, taking a seat next to Tony and automatically hating the way his position emphasizes how _big_ his friend's jersey is on him. The way the knit fabric pools in his lap irritates the _fuck_ out of him, so he hastily bunches the hem of his shirt in the back and sits on it.

"Am I allowed to kiss you and make it better?" Tony inquires. He absently runs his thumb along his jaw, thoughtfully curls his bottom lip over his teeth, and watches Loki closely. He's doing that zero emotion thing again, and _goddammit_, that really bothers Loki. He's never told Tony that it does, though.

"I don't care," Loki truthfully replies, enjoying the way a gust of wind stirs his hair and chills his skin. Fall is _finally _setting in, fortunately (Loki much prefers the cool weather of autumn and winter to the draining heat of spring and summer).

"You don't?" Tony asks, and he pulls his lighter and another cigarette out of his pocket. He fiddles with the cancer stick for a moment, waiting for Loki's answer.

"No," Loki says, cards a hand through his hair, "I don't care who's watching." Because there _are_ three fourths of the student body all around them.

Tony hesitates again, longer this time. Loki is staring at blue and white dots of people across the football field when he feels Tony press a chaste kiss to the crest of his cheek, right above the thick black line smeared there, and he recalls a time, honestly not that long ago, when that was as the extent of their physical relationship. The thought neither pleases nor upsets him.

"You okay?" Tony asks when Loki doesn't say anything or change his stance, "You're not getting into one of your bad moods, are you?"

Loki laughs a bit at the question, but it's a bitter laugh, because he knows why Tony asked what he did. It's so easy to wound him these days, even when things are looking up in an odd sort of way.

"I'm fine," Loki assures his friend, tucking his legs further underneath the bleacher on which he sits and idly picking at his nails. That's not something he normally does (because when his nail polish chips he totally has the potential to go crazy), but right about now, he doesn't really care. Plus, it's only an opportunity to try out the bottle of electric cobalt sitting on his bathroom shelf, unopened (God, did that sound too girly? Guess what?: Loki gives no fucks.).

"Alright," Tony says with a touch of anxiety, lighting his cigarette and taking a brief drag of it, "Just don't go insane on me, alright?"

"And what if I've already done that?" Loki counters, turning to smile just a little at Tony.

Tony quickly exhales a cloud of smoke, and he looks like he's going to answer Loki's mostly-rhetorical question when he spots something (that's apparently unpleasant by the look on his face) at the bottom of the bleachers. Loki follows the man's line of sight until he notices Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun clustered amongst the people flooding the stands. Oh, _God_.

"We have to hide," Tony says somewhat dumbly, contradicting his own words by puffing on his cigarette like he has no intention of moving whatsoever. Okay, Tony. That's cool.

"Oh, and how to you suppose we do that?" Loki asks sarcastically, returning his gaze to his friend, "You look like–"

"Everyone else," Tony cuts him off, and he gestures to the mass of people around them. Loki sees about seven or eight students with their bodies painted. Alright, then.

"_Yes_, but how are we going to _hide_?" Loki throws back, "You say we should like we actually can."

Tony smirks a bit around his cigarette, small streams of smoke fleeing his mouth when he chuckles quietly. He says, "We can hop under my invisibility cloak. It's in the truck."

Loki can't help but break his intentionally peevish demeanor when Tony says that, and he lets out an exuberant, unanticipated laugh. Tugging at the hair swept behind his ear, he replies, "This isn't Hogwarts, Tony."

"Bet you wish it was," Tony hums, keeping his eyes trained on Thor's friends below them.

"_Stop_," Loki laughs, even though he really wouldn't mind if the man didn't, and he playfully bumps Tony with his hip and shoulder.

"Welp, I guess we're just going to have to hope they don't notice us," Tony says with another chuckle, leaning his head against Loki's shoulder and smoking in a way so dreadfully perfect that Loki wants to tackle him, among other things.

A few minutes later and Loki is somewhat secretly _clutching_ at Tony's hand while Fandral, Sif, and Volstagg tell him this _wonderful_ story about an escapade with Thor, all with the excitement of four year-olds.

"So we're all completely _stoned_, and the only person in their right mind is Sif…" Fandral is saying. Loki is looking at him and smiling and nodding and humming in all the right places, don't get me wrong, but inside his head, he's actually trying to figure out why the game hasn't _started yet_. He was convinced that his trifling with Tony would have made them either a little late or just barely on time.

"But I'm hungover," Sif interjects. Uhm, okay.

"Yeah!" Fandral rejoins, grinning at Sif for a moment, "And we don't want her dad to wake up and start freaking out because of all the pot in the garage."

"What about the twins? Wouldn't they say something?" Loki asks, because that part of the story has been nagging at him ever since Volstagg mentioned the two of them.

"They wouldn't tell Daddy," Sif replies, and Loki relocates his attention to her, "They've been smoking weed since I was sixteen, but they never did it in the house."

"I see," Loki says, threading his fingers with Tony's to calm the man's nerves, because he can just _feel_ the anxiety rolling off of him even if he's unable to see it. That has to be the fifth cigarette Loki's heard him light in the past ten minutes.

"Anyways, Thor, Sif, and I go to start looking for Febreeze or something, right?" Fandral continues, and Loki holds back a chuckle at that (since when will _Febreeze_ mask the smell of marijuana?), "But Thor can't even walk. And I mean, I've smoked weed tons of times before, so Sif and I are doing fine, but Thor just _can't_ stand up. Me and him are in the bathroom when he fucking stumbles over the edge of the bathtub, wraps himself in the shower curtain, and busts his head against the wall."

Loki's eyes get wider and wider as Fandral speaks; can you _imagine_ that mental image? Someone as massive and bulky as Thor taking a fall like _that_? Jesus Christ.

Fandral starts to laugh a little as he goes on with, "Thor bends the curtain rod like a clothes hanger, and he starts screaming _so fucking loud_ and _so fucking high_."

"I could hear him from the garage," Volstagg says, chortling right along with Fandral, "He sounded like a dying animal… like a, like a cat in water or something."

"Oh my God," Loki mumbles, and he involuntarily covers his mouth with his hand, fighting the strong urge to just start _cackling_. This is too good.

"I run into the bathroom to find Thor yelling because he's in pain and Fandral yelling because he's laughing so hard," Sif puts in, "And I'm screaming at the both of them to shut up when Daddy and my younger brother come bitching down the hallway, asking _What the fuck is going on?_."

"What did you say?" Loki asks through his fingers, a small chuckle escaping him.

"She didn't say anything, because Thor just lets out this godlike _FUCK!_, and suddenly I can't breathe because I'm laughing _way_ too hard," Fandral replies, and damn, he's laughing pretty hard right now.

"We had to take Thor to the emergency room," Sif chuckles, resting her jaw against her hand, "He got six stitches."

Because the time period and circumstances of this story sound eerily familiar to Loki, he inquires, "You aren't talking about the road trip Thor went on two summers ago, are you?"

"That's the one," Volstagg confirms with a grin. Shit, that man can smile and make you feel welcome like nobody else (not that Loki lets that get to him).

"Why?" Sif asks, idly pulling on her ponytail.

"Well, he came home and wouldn't stop wearing bandanas for two weeks," Loki answers a bit reluctantly, sheepishly, "Our mother tried everything to get them off."

"Yep, that's what happened after _that_ trip to the hospital," Fandral says, scuffing a hand through his hair and sharing a knowing look with Volstagg. He says that like they've gone on many similar journeys before, and to be honest, Loki really doesn't doubt that. Just think about who they are. Only for a second. It makes sense, doesn't it?

"What did your father do?" Loki asks Sif, and don't think that all of his questioning implies that he's _interested_. Because he's not. Not at all.

"Well, he yelled at the twins for about ten minutes straight, right in the middle of the ER lobby," Sif replies, "And then he told me to try and find better friends or not bother coming back with this lot." She gestures to Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun with this reluctantly fond sort of smile, and it occurs to Loki how _tight_ the four – no, _five_ – of them really are.

It's kind of hard to recognize the value of a friendship when you're so busy hating on it all the time, but when Loki really thinks about how Thor and his friends are together (unified, lighthearted, _happy_), he wonders how he never noticed it before. It almost makes him jealous, considering that the last time he maintained such an awesome group companionship was when he was only a child, and he, Thor, and their cousins spent almost every hour possible together. That era ended as soon as Thor and Balder hit puberty, and an invisible line began to form between the two older boys and the younger ones: Freyr, Freya, and Loki. Anyways.

"I guess you chose the second option," Loki notes, a bit passive and subdued now that he's thought about the past (which _yes_, isn't nearly as shitty as the present, but Loki has a penchant for looking for the wrong things instead of the right ones). He subconsciously leans back towards Tony, who has remained silent and smoking like a chimney for the duration of the story being told.

Sif reveals this proud, sincere smile that's actually pretty beautiful; beautiful enough to make Loki lament over the fact that he never sees it, she doesn't do it that often, or both. She's nodding in a conclusive, pleased manner when the blaring noise of an air horn rings through the air, and suddenly everyone is fucking _crazy_, screaming their heads off and stomping like jungle animals in the bleachers. Seventy percent of the people in attendance decide to stand up for whatever reason, and Loki knows that the game is starting at last. Took it long enough, right?

"_Finally_," Tony sighs irritably, throwing his decimated cigarette butt to the ground and hastily getting to his feet. Loki feels a twinge of _negative_ at the man's mood, ever-sensitive to Tony's particularly radical emotions (Plus, who do you think has to deal with this situation? That's right: Loki does.).

As Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun rise beside him, cheering loudly, Loki reaches up to clasp Tony's shoulder, grabbing his attention. Tony looks down at him with hard, dark eyes, and Loki is honestly thinking that if the man is going to blame _him _for the behavior of _Thor's_ friends, he's leaving in a goddamn heartbeat. He doesn't care if he has to _walk_ all the way home.

"Settle down," Loki says, fixing Tony with a solemn, serious look. His voice is quiet, too quiet to hear over the raucous screaming all around, but Tony and him have been able to read one another's lips since last year, when they shared a class and were forced to sit across the room from each other. They could have whole conversations without actually saying a word.

Tony bends closer to talk directly into Loki's ear, snaps, "I'm not gonna _settle down_. I came here with _you_, not you plus _them_."

When Tony's arm shoots across Loki's chest to indicate Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun, Loki deftly grips the man's elbow in his hand, rubs up to his shoulder in a deliberately intimate, soothing way. He presses his lips against Tony's earlobe and replies, "And I'm here, aren't I? I haven't forgotten about you."

The tension in Tony's body totally deflates as Loki kisses his jaw and nuzzles his cheek, and Loki does a mental jig at his successful attempt to calm him the fuck down. And you know, why _wouldn't_ he be victorious? He's _Loki_, and Tony is _Tony_. Of course he won this battle; how could he not?

When Tony pulls back to look at him, he's smirking, just enough for it to be barely noticeable, and Loki easily picks up on the thinly cloaked hunger in his expression. He tugs on Loki's arm, orders him to, "Stand up."

Loki smiles and follows Tony's directions, rising to his feet and automatically looking to the field below. He watches, along with everyone else, as the Elysian Lions trample onto the pitch, expressing their passion by roaring like their team's namesake and pumping their huge, meaty fists. Loki's eyes quickly find Thor, most likely because the man is easily the largest member of the team, but equally possibly because he's accustomed to recognizing his brother's stance and gait from a lifetime of constantly watching him. Steve is right alongside Thor, so obviously the leader, the quarterback, the star.

Loki won't ever admit it to anyone but Tony, but he secretly feels a beat of pride in his heart, for both Thor _and_ Steve (weird, right?). His face remains impassive and unaffected, though.

Then, a mass of blue and white enters the field from the opposite side, and Loki can't help but utter a sharp noise of surprise at the mere appearance of the rival team. Oh my _God_.

"They're fucking huge," he muses somewhat ineloquently, because _damn_, almost every person in the bunch looks like a hybrid between your typical football player, your typical basketball player, and a titan.

They're absolutely _colossal_, and their cheerleaders look like they could kick _Steve's_ ass. Seriously.

Tony laughs at Loki's statement as Fandral says, "They're called the _Frost Giants_ for a reason."

Loki looks at Fandral, makes a face and asks, "_That's_ the name of their team?"

Fandral glances back at Loki with an oddly joyful smile and replies, "Yep. I guess they chose it well."

Loki returns his gaze to the field, frowning just a bit as he says, "That's a horrible name." Because it is, in his opinion. It's _fitting_, considering the size and stature of the team's members, but it just sounds _wrong_ and _off _to Loki.

This introductory prowling on the field continues for a few moments as the captains and referees emerge, calling each team to the sidelines. Loki watches, a little disheartened (only because the Frost Giants look completely monstrous and _oh my God_, they're going to lose _so __**bad**_, not that he cares), as the Elysian Lions cluster around Steve, Coach Fury, and one of the striped-shirted officials. Jean Grey squeezes her way into the middle of the herd, carrying something small and black. The team talks a minute more before giving themselves obligatory self-motivation by getting in a tight circle and shoving their hands in the middle, yelling their zeal along with their name. Jean exchanges hugs with Steve and Thor before moving further out on the field and bringing the dark object in her hands to her lips. Loki only realizes that it's a microphone she's holding when she starts to sing, and he internally wonders _why _this is necessary. This is a college football game, not the freaking Super Bowl.

The spectators go silent as Jean begins with, "_O, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming…_"

Loki awkwardly watches as everyone around him raises their hands to their hearts and either cocks their chins in a show of patriotism or bows their heads to demonstrate respect. He maintains his position with a touch of discomfort, avoids any eyes that might land on him (not that there are any; everybody's so wrapped up in their own actions).

It's not that he's unpatriotic, because he isn't. I'm not saying that he _is_ particularly devoted to his country (because again, _he isn't_), but he doesn't totally loathe America, either (even though he can be rather quick to point out its flaws when he's excited or irritated). Loki just doesn't see the point in displaying nationalism at a _football game_, and one of this nature, to boot.

"_Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?_" Jean continues in her rich, clear voice, "_And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there._"

She takes pause after that, and the still silence is incredibly tempting to Loki, begging to be broken. When he and Thor were children, they had a habit of causing disturbances whenever someone would sing the Star-Spangled Banner or recite the Pledge of Allegiance, either by making noise or generally behaving inappropriately. They still do it to this day, occasionally. However, Loki remains mute this time, unwilling to deal with whatever bullshit that could come flying his way if he didn't.

"_O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?_" Jean belts out, and a few shouts of approval come pealing from somewhere at Loki's right, "_O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave_."

The whole world explodes with applause and acclamation as soon as Jean's last note comes to an end. Loki quickly sits down, honestly afraid that he's going to fall over and die from the force of the ovation thundering around him. Once he feels safe enough to, he starts to belatedly clap along with the crowd, just as pleased with and appreciative of Jean's performance as the rest of them (even if he _did_ think the procedure was rather redundant).

After most of the roar has died down and people have started to sit again, the cheerleaders make themselves useful (useless) by jumping around and making noise. Because it's totally necessary that you have girls in skimpy outfits prancing about and yelling encouragement at every single sporting event _ever_ _in the world period_. That's a waste of yet another five minutes, and Loki is seriously starting to regret his decision to attend this mess. What was he _thinking_?

Oh, yeah. That he wanted Thor to leave him alone so he could go to sleep and for Tony to love him forever. Right.

And _then_, after a million and a half years of pointless cheering, the game _actually _begins. This is almost worse than watching the cheerleaders, though, simply because Loki doesn't get it. _At all_. Mostly, instead of struggling to understand, he just keeps his eye Thor and Steve doing whatever it is they do. With Steve, that mainly involves a lot of running around and passing the football, which isn't so hard for Loki to observe. On the other hand, Thor, as the main linebacker, does a ton of tackling the shit out of people and covering Clint and Logan. Watching his brother ram into the ginormous Frost Giants is a bit more unsettling than Loki would ever be willing to say, even if he knows that Thor is entirely capable of and more than willing to hold his ground. Anyways, besides paying attention to the two most important players on the team, Loki also busies himself with enjoying Tony, Fandral, and Volstagg's highly vociferous and totally _ridiculous _reactions to the game.

Every time this sophomore people call Bucky kicks the ball through what Tony says is a goalpost, Tony, Fandral, and Volstagg get real excited and start clapping, or express acclaim in some other similar and exaggerated manner. Loki soon realizes that this move earns a team three points each time it's executed, and he's exceptionally proud of himself for figuring this out.

When Steve or Clint grabs the ball and runs into one of the two red areas at the either side of the field, the crowd goes nuts and everybody starts yelling "_Touchdown!_" _That_ rewards a team six points. There's a lot more than just field goals and touchdowns going on, but those two plays are the only ones Loki is actually able to get a grasp on. Everything else seems arbitrary to him.

At halftime, Loki is sort of-kind of _yearning_ to go home. I mean, it's pretty fun to look at a bunch of men run around in tight pants and fight over a ball, while also watching even more people that are crazier than himself look at a bunch of men run around in tight pants and fight over a ball, but this gets to be a little tedious after an hour or so. Plus, Loki's mind is wandering again (how _shocking_), and all he can think about is how lonely Fenrir must be at home and the container of strawberries in his refrigerator and the brand new paperback sitting on his desk, and how he could be doing anything but _being bored_ right now.

"Not interesting enough for you?" Sif abruptly asks him, and the question makes Loki realize that he's completely peeled the polish off of the thumb and index finger of his left hand in his boredom. Shit, that means he's going to have to clean _all_ of his nails; if he doesn't, he'll drive himself insane.

"No, not really," Loki replies as Sif pushes Fandral to the right to take a seat next to him. He scoots over as far as he can to make more room for the woman, which really isn't a problem, seeing as it doesn't hurt _at all_ to be pressed up against Tony's side. Nope, that's totally fine.

"Do you understand football?" Sif inquires, and the way she voices the question sounds like she's known plenty of people who have been in the same situation as Loki at the moment. She drapes her arms over her knees and leans forward; to see him better, Loki guesses.

"Not much," Loki sighs, scraping away the layer of black paint on his middle finger, "But I think I'm catching on."

Sif watches him for a moment before asking, "Do you want me to help you?"

"Oh, _God_, no," Loki answers a bit too quickly (wow, that was _polite_), and when Sif makes a face at his response, he quickly adds, "It would be futile. Thor and Tony have already tried explaining football to me for about a year. I'm not wired to get it with someone else's help."

Sif's expression softens when he says that. She rubs a hand over her bare, goosebumped shoulder and says, "Well, I guess that makes sense. In a way."

Loki nods in agreement and moves onto his ring finger, eyes cast down. He's still unused to having so much conversation with anyone other than Tony or Frigga, to tell you the truth; in his experience, either the people he wants to talk to avoid him, or he avoids the people that actually seek him out. Coincidentally, the _avoider _and _avoidee _roles are incredibly interchangeable. For example: sometimes all Loki wants do is have a conversation with Thor (surprising, right?), and it's usually those times when Thor doesn't have the time of day for him. When Thor decides he actually _does_ want to talk to him, Loki isn't the least bit interested in _looking_ at his brother (probably since he's in a nasty mood _because_ Thor ignored him), let alone _speaking_ to him. This process then repeats _x_ amount of times and turns into a neverending cycle. See what I mean?

"You don't really want to be here, do you?" Sif asks, and her voice is quieter, gentler, with an inflection Loki's never heard in it before. Either he doesn't know this woman very well or she's just in a fantastic mood.

But then, he also considers the fact that she may be like him and have to deal with crazily varied emotions from day-to-day.

"No," Loki replies, actually looking at Sif as he does. He feels oddly guilty saying _no_ to her so many times and in complete succession, even if he _is_ telling the truth.

Before Sif can say something in response, Fandral is asking them at a volume entirely too loud, "Are you guys hungry?"

What did I say? _Trollin'_, man.

In total harmony, Loki and Sif shake their heads and answer, "_No_."

Fandral grins at the odd coincidence as Sif utters a nervous laugh and Loki bites the inside of his lip (the only other person he's ever been able to do that with, accidentally or on purpose, is Thor, and that used to be a daily occurrence). He motions to Volstagg and Hogun and says, "We're gonna go get something to eat, okay?"

Sif nods with a small smile, and then Fandral is off. The woman turns her attention back to Loki, eyes sparkling with amusement, and Loki can't help but chuckle a bit at what just occurred. He's fixing to say something about it when they're interrupted _again_, this time by Tony. The man steals Loki's attention with a squeezing hand on his shoulder and says, "I'll be right back."

Not nearly as irritated as he would've been if it was anyone else bothering him, Loki leans back (but not far enough to send him plummeting off the bleachers, _oh no_), runs his fingers through his hair (if you're wondering why he does that so much, just know that it's a deeply-ingrained habit), offers Tony a hint of a smirk, and replies only slightly sarcastically, "Have fun."

Loki foresaw the grin that takes over Tony's face. That was extraordinarily predictable; anticipated, even. What he _didn't_ expect was for Tony to just _smack a kiss _on his temple, right in front of _Sif_. Believe me, this is totally different than if some random person had been watching; Sif actually _knows_ Loki.

So Loki's just sitting there, his cheeks warmer than he'd like them to be (holy shit, he fucking _despises_ blushing, especially because his pale skin makes the redness that much more apparent) and his eyes glued to Tony's retreating form. Sif is watching him, he can _feel _it.

One day, Loki's going to write a letter to the universe. The only thing in the body will be _Fuck you_.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Sif asks after a moment of silence, and the trace of laughter in her voice is just enough to make Loki look at her. She's smiling a bit, but her expression is schooled into open passivity.

"That's his part-time job," Loki ends up saying, and he finds himself laughing a bit at his own answer. Wow, that was a _great_ thing to say, if not completely impulsive and unexpected.

Sif's smile widens, and she chuckles, "I know how that feels."

It quickly dawns on Loki that Sif is referring to herself and Thor, and he doesn't verbalize his strong opinion that _no, she doesn't_. He really can't say much of Sif's relationship with his brother, considering that he doesn't know anything beyond what he sees and hears about it, but Loki is absolutely certain that Sif and Thor are dancing to a very different beat than the one he and Tony move to.

"What else does he do?" Sif asks, drawing Loki's joke out.

"Well, he's a great bodyguard and an awesome personal assistant," Loki quips, alluding to Tony's tendency to be overprotective and willingness to do just about _anything_ for him. He grins when Sif laughs again, more freely.

"That's more than I could ask for," she says, glancing out to where the cheerleaders perform a noisy, energetic routine on the field. And Loki automatically thinks two things right then:

1. _**She's jealous of the cheerleaders.**_Loki isn't investing a whole lot in this assumption because of the ample room for error, but the way Sif's face goes hard and disapproving whenever she looks at the cheerleading squad, plus the propensity of some of its members to fawn over Thor like schoolgirls, plus what Sif's wearing at the moment equals _jealousy_ to him. That's all there is to it.

2. _**Why is she talking about Thor like this to me?**_ Because as much fun as it is for him to bitch and whine about Thor (it _is_ rather entertaining), Loki isn't a fan of hearing other people diss his brother so offhandedly. Especially _Sif_, because she's a woman (and therefore more likely to be petty about this) and somewhat obviously besotted with Thor. If she has such a big problem with the man, she can rid herself of him. Loki would rather she do that than criticize his brother to his face, for all of their sakes.

Instead of doing what he normally would and getting nasty with Sif, Loki tempers, "It's better to ask than to go without."

Sif looks back at Loki with an odd expression on her face, like she's both surprised and influenced by his statement. Loki meaningfully quirks an eyebrow at the woman before returning his attention to his nails, effectively dodging the threat of more questions or additional conversation. He's said exactly what he needed to, and he's just shy of prideful because of it.

Sif doesn't say anything more to him until Tony comes back with two _huge_ cups full of some kind of soft drink (those things are almost as large as Loki's head, he swears). As soon as Loki looks up to address Tony, he gets two handfuls (_two_ because the cup is fucking gigantic) of _drink_ and another kiss, this time on his forehead (oh my God, this is amazing, beautiful, confusing, and mortifying all at once, and Loki absolutely loves it).

Smiling like a fool, Loki asks, "What's this for?"

"It's root beer, and it's for _you_," Tony replies, and Loki could just jump on him and hug him to death and _aaaggghhh_, he's _so wonderful_ (that's kind of a big deal if you think about it, seeing as Loki usually isn't willing to be that affectionate and warm with other people). Reason number twenty seven why Loki loves Tony Stark: the man has his favorite things to eat and drink completely committed to memory, one of these being root beer. It doesn't matter that Loki isn't thirsty. He's going to _savor_ this gigantic cup of awesomeness.

"I love you," Loki blurts, and he absolutely adores the way Tony grins wholeheartedly at him. Jesus Christ, he thinks he's going to explode.

Is this a manic episode? Probably so. Does that stop Loki from thoroughly enjoying it? Not at all.

"And I love you," Tony says. _**Oh my God**_.

Then there's this unbearable sensation between them, because they both want to touch or hug or make out or _something_, but Sif's right there and they can't and _ugh_. Yeah.

So Loki washes down a surge of _angst_ (fuck, not the emotional roller-coaster again) with a sip of glorious _root beer_ (okay, that makes everything a little better) and forces himself not to think too hard about his emotions. That's a bit hard to do when he's so in touch with those things, never mind how _horrible _they are.

And then Sif says, somewhat out of the blue, "I guess you asked."

Both Loki and Tony look at her, confused, but it doesn't take Loki long to catch on to what she's saying. He beams, hums, "I didn't have to."

Sif slowly returns his smile as Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun come trundling back to their seats, arms full of food. She doesn't reply, but Loki's able to hear the silent _Lucky you_ she sends his way. He can't help but agree.

Halftime ends and more monotonous football-playing commences. This section of the game isn't as boring as the first one was, namely because Loki has _**root beer**_ (_**fuck yeah**_) and Tony's actually talking to him this time. The only negative thing about the situation is the rapid gain of points for the Frost Giants, who are seriously taking it out of the Elysian Lions now that Thor isn't on the field. Bruce and the rest of the defense may be great, but without Thor, they have _a lot_ of room for improvement.

About ten frustrating minutes into the play, Fandral bolts to his feet and just starts yelling, "_Put Thor back in the fucking game!_"

"Fandral!" Sif complains, reaching up to grab his raised arm and attempting to lower it, "Shut up, will you?"

Tony makes an incredulous face as Fandral jerks out of Sif's grip and completely ignores her plea by chanting, "_Thor on the field! Thor on the field! Thor on the field!_"

And then Volstagg and Hogun stand up and begin to shout right along with their friend, pumping their fists to show just how _serious_ they are (because football _is_ serious business, _bro_). Loki, Tony, and Sif are watching the three with wide, horrified eyes, and almost everyone in close proximity to the group turns to gawk at them. _What_.

Just when Loki thinks this can't get any worse (nothing's worse than _attention_, believe me), about eight people in the bleachers around them get up and start repeating the mantra, screaming like howler monkeys. The trend spreads like wildfire until over half the people in the stands are yelling their heads off, yelling for Thor.

"I guess they want Thor on the field," Tony says oh so cleverly, and Loki chuckles at the blatant sarcasm in the man's statement.

The frenzied shouting doesn't stop until Thor goes running onto the field, trading places with Peter Rasputin, and his reentrance is immediately met with exclamations of approval. Loki fails to feel the enthusiasm everyone else does, because instead of seeing the invincible, unbreakable Thor Skywalker trotting onto his rightful territory, he sees his brother, growing increasingly exhausted and dragging himself into battle. He's also sort of-kind of fretting over Steve and the rest of the team, despite the fact that they've been coached to plow through a game like soldiers. No amount of training can take away their humanity.

Jeeze, that was dramatic. Forget Loki ever thought that, okay?

So Thor's back in the game, and the defense is suddenly much better with the dual force of him and Bruce. Steve, Clint, Logan, and the rest of the offense can _finally_ execute a play successfully without getting completely pulverized by the monstrous Frost Giants with Thor covering their asses.

And you know what? They win. With three field goals and a touchdown, they _win_.

The crowd _explodes_ like an atomic bomb. The cheerleaders _soar_ through the air like popcorn. The Elysian Lions _roar_. Everything is noise and excitement and _victory_, and this time, Loki can actually _feel_ it. _Literally_, because Tony is hugging him tighter than a vice and kissing him like he's dying, and Sif is grasping his hand and holding it high in the air, and Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun are squeezing all around them, raising them up, and he's smiling so hard he feels like his face is going to go flying apart.

Everybody in the stands floods onto the field and practically _attacks_ the Lions, still screaming and cheering. Loki really doesn't want to shove himself into that mess, but Tony, Fandral, and Volstagg are fucking _determined_ when they drag him, Sif, and Hogun directly into the mob. Thankfully, Loki doesn't feel the brunt of the pressure, because Tony sort of acts like a human shield and takes most of the impact from the crowd. What a hero.

They gradually make it to the heart of the action, where the Elysian Lions are getting bombarded with _awesome_. Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif peel off to find Thor, and Loki is left practically clinging to Tony, unwilling to leave his side (because doing so would surely result in death by trampling).

And then a voice is calling, "_Tony!_", and Loki is suddenly _unattached _to his friend and so absolutely _terrified_, ohmygod_ohmygod__**ohmygod**_.

Loki whirls around to search for Tony, frantic, and he doesn't have to look long before he finds him. Tony's only moved about two feet away, and he's wrapped up in an extremely tight embrace with a very haggard, very _joyful_ Steve. Loki kind of feels like the world just stopped or something, like he's been punched in the chest or slapped in the face and _dammit_, that happens every time he sees Tony and Steve like that.

Tony and Steve pull apart but don't let go of each other's arms, and they're grinning these wide, _holyshitIamsohappybestfriend_ grins that make Loki want to throw up or run away. He doesn't like to feel this way, doesn't like that he has _reason_ to feel this way, but he owns his emotions, his _jealousy_,more than anyone else does.

Loki is wearing what he's sure is the most mortified expression _ever_ when Steve's eyes land on him, and he can't even bring himself to look away from the man's smiling face. Sure, he closes his mouth and tries to appear a little less _humiliated_, but it's nearly impossible to tear his gaze from Steve. And then the man does something Loki doesn't anticipate _at all_.

"Loki!" Steve gasps, and he releases Tony to come bounding towards Loki. He grabs him by the shoulders and _hugs_ him, like seriously, _haven't seen you in forever_, _missed you dearly_, _best friend_ _**hugs **_him. And Loki has no idea _what_ to think.

So, he hugs Steve back with just as much fervor. And he smiles. Yeah, he's going crazy (I say this because that's the only liable explanation for _why_ he's squeezing the hell out of the person he hates).

Steve lets out this overjoyed laughing noise and rocks Loki for a moment, cries, "You're actually here! You actually came!"

It never occurred to Loki how many people wanted him at this game, and how badly at that. This feeling of _love_ comes rushing into him like a tidal wave, and his eyes legitimately start watering.

"I did," Loki chokes out as Steve loosens his grip on him. He feels just a little _ecstatic_ with the way the man's face lights up when he sees his expression. _Oh my God_, what is this _emotion?_

"Steve! Steve!" someone (who sounds a lot like a certain Peggy Carter) shouts over the deafening noise of the crowd, and Steve flashes Loki one last smile before he's surging through the sea of people, looking for his girl.

When Loki looks back at Tony, his friend is grinning like a Cheshire Cat, with pride and the ultimate _I told you_ written all over his face.

"What are you smiling at?" Loki barks, but it actually comes out sounding like a laugh. And damn, he's smiling, too.

Tony moves closer to him and _oh God_, frames his face with his hands, says, "You, stupid," and then he fucking _presses their foreheads together_, and words cannot express exactly how _amazing_ Loki feels right now. This has to be imagined, because things like this _don't happen_ to people like Loki.

Loki is thinking about how he's never ever _ever _going to feel better than _this_ again when he hears his name being called, and he looks up, and it's Thor, _sweet Jesus_, _it's __**Thor**_. Loki only has time to open his arms before he's being lifted completely off of the ground and spun around in the air by his brother, who is sweaty and gross and ew, but his fucking brother nonetheless.

"_Loki, Loki, Loki!_" Thor chants, squeezing the man in a painfully, _wonderfully_ tight hug and knocking their temples together. _No one_ can hug like Thor can, and Thor doesn't hug _anyone_ like he hugs Loki. True story.

Loki squeezes his arms as firmly as he can around Thor's massive shoulders and lets out a cry of jubilation. This is positively the happiest he's been in a long, _long_, _**long**_ time.

* * *

**Well, that's all folks. I really hope this isn't as terrible as I think it is. I **_**promise**_**, I'll try to get the next one up lightning fast (which will probably be easy, because it's going to be much shorter, lol).**

**I love all of you readers like dying, I swear. To octohorse, lolloki, and pitachipz on Tumblr, I'd like to thank you guys for popping into my as****kbox and telling me how you feel about **_**Brothers**_**. You've all made my life brighter with your comments. **

**Also, I'd like to request two things for a second time (they aren't big, honest):**

**One, does anyone have anymore guesses regarding this unrequited pairing I've hinted at? I forbid Andi from saying **_**anything **_**about it. ;]**

**Two, more ideas for things that could happen later on? I'd love to hear your ideas.**

**- Gabi.**


	13. Count to the Tenth Rib and Take a Left

**Title:** Count to the Tenth Rib and Take a Left._  
_**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~4850.  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Tony Stark. Tony/Loki like _yeahhhh_ (I think I'm just going to do that for every single snippet).  
**Spoilers:** None.  
Warnings: AU. Angst. One of the scenes here might appear a little incestuous, but I _swear_ I didn't mean it to (though I don't object to Thor/Loki anywhere else).  
**Summary:** But the scar Loki's gazing at now marks where his tenth rib broke and pierced straight through his skin from the force of a dashboard and an airbag crashing into his chest, while a seatbelt nearly choked him to death. That doesn't make him think of _growth_. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** _So_, someone mentioned awhile back that they were interested about the details of the accident. While I do drop a lot of hints about it pretty often (and talked a lot about it in _Gridiron I_), I did want to write a bit sort of-kind of centered on what happened. And this is it. I apologize in advance for any bullshit formatting Fanfiction decides to do in the process of posting this.

* * *

He doesn't bother kicking the door shut, taking into account that he's in the privacy of his own home and that Thor won't have a temper tantrum if he happens to see a little skin. He just pulls off his newly damp t-shirt and tosses it in the hamper, moves over to his dresser to dig up something dry.

To briefly explain why Loki has to change his shirt (it seems like he has to do that a whole lot, actually): Thor was getting a glass of water and the sink decided to turn into one of those turbo-charged sprinklers you only find in the front yards of wealthy corporations. He and Loki had to use their combined strength on the faucet knobs before they were able to actually shut the tap off. Naturally, they both got fucking _soaked_ in the process.

So here Loki is, looking for a new top. He settles on a well-loved, kelly green t-shirt from high school and takes a few seconds to admire the faded white ram's head printed on the front (not that he's particularly nostalgic, because he _isn't_). When he looks up, easily sliding his arms into the t-shirt's sleeves, he catches his reflection in the mirror and freezes. The first thing his eyes land on is his hair, which is messy and damp and curling and _ugh_. The second is the long, pale scar stretching across the left of his abdomen, hypertrophic and almost unnoticeable in the darkness of his room.

Loki stares at the tiny ridge for a lengthy moment, slowly tugging his t-shirt down over his head but keeping it raised above his chest. He absently runs his index finger (the nail of which is painted _electric cobalt_, might I add) over the old wound, bites his lip against the odd, shivery sensation that shudders through him when he does. And then he scowls.

He fucking hates that scar.

Loki has about five permanent blemishes decorating his body: a small one just under and behind his ear from an accident when he was three (Thor was carrying him around the house and, in a moment of clumsiness, dropped him on his head); another at the base of his back from when he was seven and Thor had dragged him across the carpet (he ended up with rug burn); a dark one on the inside of his elbow from fumbling a hair straightener; another on his wrist from an intentional, self-inflicted cut. All of these Loki appreciates, because, in his opinion, they're all symbolic of life experience and growth (which is always great, right?).

But the scar Loki's gazing at now marks where his tenth rib broke and pierced straight through his skin from the force of a dashboard and an airbag crashing into his chest, all while a seatbelt nearly choked him to death. That doesn't make him think of _growth_. That's a reminder of the beginning of a backwards journey, of one misplaced step that transformed into about a thousand miles in the completely _wrong_ direction.

Nobody aside from Thor and himself has ever seen this scar after it healed. Loki's learned not to look at it, learned to ignore the way his whole body tingles whenever he touches it. But he's just so _wonderful_ right now, just so beautifully in touch with Thor that the universe_ had_ to focus his attention on the one physical reminder he has left of the accident. Of course.

Loki drags the pad of his thumb over the scar once, twice, lets his lips fall open to release a tiny gasp. It's not painful, to touch it; it's just very tender.

Thor used to go crazy every time he saw Loki after the accident. And how could he not? He was seeing a ghost of his brother; a pale, battered creature with purpled skin and black, sunken eyes. To make it worse, Loki didn't speak. No. There was no time for talking when anything that threatened to escape his mouth was drenched in heartbreak and betrayal.

Thor would try to coax words out of him from the moment they got home from the hospital, but all he'd be rewarded with was Loki's glaring, hateful eyes and Frigga softly telling him to _Leave your brother alone, Thor, he's sick_. And Loki _was_ sick, in the deepest, most soulful way to have disease.

As Loki's physical injuries faded, Thor's resolve to get to him boldened. Of course, that only made Loki even colder, and _that _only enraged Thor further. Once upon a time, Loki was hateful and icy in a way that would have his present self flinching away and averting his eyes if he ever encountered something like it again (he really was _that_ horrible). It took over a year for him to lock that part of his soul away, and not without a generous amount of help from Frigga and Tony. Even still, the darkness comes out to play.

Like tectonic plates, Loki and Thor would alternate between grinding against one another and ripping apart from each other. One always pushed closer. The other always pulled away. And the world could only watch as they fought, as their words grew nastier and their hearts grew harder, and their vocal cords went raw with acid and their eyes became red with tears.

Loki lowers his shirt gradually, shielding his scar from his eyes. He can still feel phantom tremors shaking through his body, though, and _dammit_, here it comes: depression. Stress. The urge to get in bed and stay there, to curl up, close his eyes, and never move again. How _can_ he move when all he sees is Thor and absence behind his eyes, when all he feels is perpetual soreness like an infection under his skin, when all he hears is clinical descriptions of his mind, his body, his soul?

If Loki learned one thing from the accident, it was hate. He'd never felt such horrid feelings towards _anything_ before it happened. Loki already understood how to distrust and how to rage and how to cry, but he'd never known how to loathe or feel pain until his body was crushed by Thor's car and his psyche was smashed to bits by Thor's recklessness.

Loki hated Thor for possessing so little regard for his safety and wellbeing, for having the audacity to _get drunk_ and pick him up, for destroying his life without the decency to realize just _what_ he'd done. He hated Thor for lying in the comfort and luxury of his bed for hours on end while he died a hundred times a day just trying to graduate high school, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, trying to _get away_. He hated Thor for self-righteously thinking he was doing him a favor by trying to reach out to him, because every single time he did, he was only tearing Loki up even more on the inside. He hated Thor for being perfect and strong and _mentally sound _while he was dark and weak and _going crazy_. He hated Thor for continuing to love him even as Loki spit venom in his face, for claiming to care so much for him while he broke his bones over, and_ over_, and_** over **_again_._

Loki hated Frigga for thinking that forgiveness was going to heal him, because that's _bullshit_; forgiveness will _never _erase the scar on his body and the wound on his heart, will never trash the past and cancel out all of Thor's mistakes. He hated Frigga for loving Thor when Thor was _so fucking __**horrible**_, when Thor was a demon living in his home, when Thor was the one who killed the son that was lying _dead_ on Frigga's kitchen floor, screaming _Mommy, help me! Help me!_. He hated Frigga for asking him to change when he had no control over what had happened to him and his misplaced soul.

Loki hated Odin for _never_ changing, for favoring Thor even after the son of a bitch wrecked his car, went to jail, and nearly _killed_ both of his sons; or, more like, his son and the _other one_ that just happened to live in his house, breathe his air, share his DNA. He hated Odin for ignoring him so, for pretending not to hear every time he cried out in the night, for pretending not to see the tears in his eyes as he sat at the dining room table, his lips red and ripped from biting them too hard. He hated Odin for being his father, because it was like being the illegitimate son of the devil and the brother of Cain. He hated Odin for having a stroke and becoming the center of attention right along with Thor, while he still struggled, while he still burned. He hated Odin for raising him with what seemed to be the sole purpose of amplifying _Thor_, of being his brother's stepping stone to something greater while he bows low, of watching Thor walk when he's only allowed to crawl.

Loki hated Balder, his oldest cousin, for remaining quiet and on Thor's side even as he watched _both _of his cousins get ripped apart by _Thor's _actions, the younger of them destroyed in the process. He hated Balder for wishing everything would blow over and settle down after awhile, because _it didn't_, _goddammit_, because that's just ignorance and weakness, because disregarding a problem doesn't fix it. He hated Balder for refusing to look at him just because he couldn't stand the hate in his eyes; fucking _coward_.

Loki hated Freyr for being so _independent_, for refusing to take sides and remaining perfectly balanced while he watched the rest of his cousins get driven through the floor by the weight of their pain, their confusion, their anxiety. He hated Freyr for being able to look away and see light in the world, for never losing composure, for staying the carefree, life-loving child he'd always been since the times when all he would do was play with Freya, Thor, Loki, and Balder for whole eternities and they didn't all _loathe _each other. He hated Freyr for turning his lustful eyes and flesh-seeking hands on others for comfort, on _him_.

Loki hated Freya for insisting that everything was going to be okay, that things were going to go right back to the way they used to be, when all she had to do was _look_ at him to see the irreversible change inside him. He hated Freya for remaining in his house like a piece of furniture long after he'd told her to get out and leave him alone, for clogging his cellphone memory with voicemails he'd grudgingly listen to and despise her even more for. He hated Freya for claiming she was all for him while still paying visits to Thor's bedside, for not owning up to her neutrality as her brother did so well.

Loki hated Steve and Clint for stealing his brother so much, for leading the man even further astray, for blinding him from what was important with a cloth of glory and hedonism. He hated his psychiatrist for telling him the worst thing he'd ever heard in his life, for classifying him as _bipolar II_, _possible anxiety disorder_, for prescribing elephant tranquilizer in capsule form to _fix_ him. He hated his physical therapist for telling him _Just a little more, the pain's going to get better_ when the pain _didn't _get better, when he'd lose hours of sleep each night just because his body was aching so badly. He hated himself for every reason there was to do so: he was ugly because of the welts all over his body, a coward for how scared he'd become, horrible because he'd changed into something so hateful, thin because he'd refused to eat, disgusting because he'd go days without giving a damn, weak because of the strain of doing _anything_, stupid because he'd trusted Thor, unimportant because no one cared, pitiful because _he _didn't care.

Loki couldn't stop despising _everything_ until Tony walked into his life, bringing with him his childish smile and easy arrogance and twinkling eyes. The man's a lot like Thor, actually, only softer, more sensual, darker, _closer_. And if Tony, who has every reason in the world to hate, can _love _someone as bitter and vindictive and broken as Loki _so_ much, why can't Loki love as well?

Loki moves over to his bed and sits down on the edge, momentarily forgetting about reality and letting his thoughts leisurely revolve around the scar burning on his ribs, the line of dominoes that is his life. He reaches behind his head and pulls his dark, unruly hair into a ponytail without really thinking about it. It vaguely occurs to him that Thor is waiting for him in the front, but it's unfortunately very _difficult _to care about that when he's just been assaulted with some of the worst thoughts possible, the majority of which are about his brother.

Loki fists a hand in his comforter and closes his eyes, breathing a deep sigh and trying to physically force the negativity out of him. When he and Thor were little, Frigga would read them this book called _The Little Me and the Great Me_. The Little Me was everything dark and spiteful inside of you, and the Great Me was your positivity, your strength. The book encouraged you to blow out your Little Me like a candle and to breathe your Great Me in. Loki supposes that's what he's trying to do now, in a weird, miserable sort of way.

He's considering just crawling under the covers and going to bed early (that's kind of a waste of what could have been a perfectly great Saturday, but Loki honestly can't find one fuck to give right now) when his phone starts to vibrate, _noisily _(it sounds a little like a goddamn jackhammer, really). Loki wills his eyes open and extends an arm to grab his cell from the nightstand beside him, sniffs quietly as he flicks the Pantech open. He glances at the bright green dialogue box that says _1 new message from: Tony_.

Spirits just a bit lifted, Loki opens the text and reads it:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**you wanna come see me tomrrow?**_

Loki slides his cellphone's keyboard out and rapidly types a reply:

_**From: Loki**_

_**Message:**_

_**Of course. But I might come late; I'm going to be out tomorrow.**_

The next few moments are crazily tense as Loki waits for Tony to answer. He slides further onto his bed and folds his legs Indian-style, stares at the shadows throwing themselves across the carpet like ballet dancers. Stupidly, he slips a hand underneath his t-shirt to rub at his scar again. Loki wonders what it would feel like if Tony touched it, and he laughs out loud at the silliness of the thought (because that _was_ kind of ridiculous, but when is he _not_ thinking about things that are wild to some degree?).

Then his phone vibrates again, and Loki quickly clicks open the message:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**sleepover lol?**_

_**what are you gonna be doing?**_

Loki chuckles quietly and punches in:

_**From: Loki**_

_**Message:**_

_**Maybe not. We have class Monday morning, remember? And I can't risk letting Thor oversleep.**_

_**I'm going shopping.**_

Just as Loki is hitting the _Send_ button, Thor's voice comes calling down the hall, "Loki? Are you okay?"

"I'll be there in a second, Thor!" Loki says loudly, but his volume soon becomes obsolete when the man appears in the doorway. Loki watches passively as his brother gazes at him, fails to feel embarrassment or discomfort in his current position. Thor frowns.

"Did I do something wrong?" Thor asks with a touch of paranoia that's slightly unusual for him (Loki has been getting used to it, though; ever since he and Thor had that angst-fest after football practice, Thor's been extra sensitive to his feelings), moving further into Loki's room. He pauses to flip the light on as he enters, and Loki blinks a couple of times at the sudden explosion of brightness in his eyes. He hates it when that happens.

"No," Loki replies, fiddling with his phone, "It's just that Tony texted me, and I got distracted. I'm sorry." He purposefully omits the part where he had a total freak-out because he just _happened _to glimpse the nearly-invisible, completely unsettling scar on his ribs, even though he knows he should probably tell Thor about that.

Oh, well. It shouldn't haunt him long enough for a problem to arise (but you never know with him).

Thor's frown deepens a bit, and Loki's not sure whether it's because he detects a lack of information or because Tony was mentioned. His uncertainty is dispelled when Thor asks, "Are you still _not dating_?"

Loki's phone vibrates as he hums contentedly and answers, "Yes, we're still _not dating_. Does that bother you?"

"_No_," Thor says a bit brusquely, crossing his thick, muscular arms over his chest. Loki takes a moment to read the message Tony has sent him:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**boo-hoo. /3 **_

_**my heart aches for you, loki. srsly. come get in my bed.**_

_**and i wonder what for? ;]**_

Loki lets out a pleased, purring laugh that Thor looks thoroughly disgusted with. He types:

_**From: Loki**_

_**Message:**_

_**I'd be delighted to get in your bed, Tony. But that doesn't mean I can ignore responsibility.**_

_**Oh, Romeo, how will you get by without Juliet?**_

_**It's none of your business.**_

"Thor, I'm getting awfully negative vibes from you," Loki says once he's sent his text. He looks up to give Thor a wry quirk of the lips, pats the bed next to him and offers, "Come talk to me."

Thor scowls and relocates his gaze to the floor. _Ooohhh_, now he's getting emotionally constipated. _Delightful_. Nothing Loki hasn't dealt with before.

"_Thooorr_, come here," Loki drones, using very best persuasive voice (which is feline and velvety-smooth and _irresistible_) and elegantly crooking a finger at his brother. When Thor glances up at him once more, he smiles, welcoming and trustworthy (everything he usually _isn't_).

After about five(just _five_) seconds of stubborn defiance, Thor moves to sit on the bed beside Loki, and _damn_, that actually wasn't very hard at all. Loki's smile grows a bit, and he tilts his head at Thor in a way that's both empathetic and genuine. Thor only glowers at him in response.

"What's your problem with Tony, Thor?" Loki asks, keeping his tone carefully even and neutral. He's aware of a ton of reasons _why _his brother could be so intolerable of his best friend, but he's _anybody _but one to make assumptions.

Thor does this thing where everything in the world _besides_ Loki is suddenly _so _much more fascinating than it was mere seconds ago. Uhm, _no_, Thor. Do you know who Loki _is_? That's not going to work.

"_Thor_," Loki insists, firm and quiet. His phone vibrates, but he refrains from checking the message there (which is like absolute _torture_) out of politeness and to appear as open as possible.

Thor doesn't look directly at Loki, instead focusing on the plastic bracelets adorning the man's wrist as he says, with an edge of reluctance, "He's a predator."

And Loki nearly bursts into laughter when he hears that (_oh my God_), but he bites down _hard_ on the inside of his mouth and settles for a minute, elusive smile instead of outright rudeness. He questions, "What makes you think that?"

"Well, have you seen the way he is with the people he dates?" Thor points out, and he actually looks at Loki's face when he says this, almost as if that'll emphasize how obviously _right _he is. His eyes are stony and defensive, and _ooohh_, it's almost too sweet that he's getting protective like this. Especially since he has _no idea_ about who Tony really is.

"Your darling Emma Frost is the same if not worse, brother," Loki argues gently, and he hints a smirk when Thor scowls, "And I'm not simply a piece of meat to him. Has he ever fawned over anyone else he's been interested in like he does over me?"

Thor hesitates, doesn't answer. _Exactly_.

"I rest my case," Loki quips, sliding his keyboard in and out several times in slight agitation. _God_, he just wants to _read this text_ _**so much**_.

"_Okay_, I get your point there," Thor grumbles, makes a dismissive gesture with his hand that actually bothers the _fuck_ out of Loki (do you know how many times people have shrugged his words off in the exact same way before?), "But he's _crazy_, Loki. Do you remember what he did to Headmaster Lehnsherr's office last year?"

Loki does. After one referral too many, Lehnsherr threatened to expel Tony, and in revenge, Tony totally _ransacked _the guy's office. That might sound like the stupidest possible thing to do in response to possible _expulsion_, but Lehnsherr interpreted the act as one of extreme determination; determination he relentlessly searches for in his students. Tony remained in school and out of trouble for the rest of the year, and, as something of a bonus, everybody discovered the details of his stunt and hailed him as a hero among the freshman. That was the magnum opus of Tony's ever-growing career in troublemaking.

Loki nods a bit, unfazed, and asks, "If I minded his craziness, do you think I'd be such close friends with him?"

Thor shuts his mouth again, and this time he levels a heavy, resentful look at his brother. It almost makes Loki laugh, _again_.

"Clint's just as psycho as Tony, Thor," Loki adds. He keeps messing with his keyboard, irritation getting the best of him.

"Clint's not an asshole," Thor persists.

Loki glares a bit, challenges, "You're saying that Tony _is_?" And of course Tony's an asshole. That doesn't mean Loki's going to _admit_ that he is (nor does it imply that he doesn't absolutely _adore _him because of it).

"_Yeah_. The guy's a dick," Thor asserts, setting his jaw and hardening his gaze.

"You _don't know _Tony," Loki snaps, his tone an octave higher. They're slipping into legitimate argument territory now (because you _don't_ insult Tony without hitting some of Loki's more critical nerves), but that doesn't signal the end of the world like it would have a week ago.

Thor's face takes on an all-out pissed expression, and even though Loki keeps reminding himself that his brother is so angry on _his _behalf, his tolerance is still being worked to the brink, what with Tony's honor on the line and _this fucking text _he has to read.

"_Nobody _knows Tony," Thor says. Loki's patience sort of-kind of _really_ flies out the window at that.

"_I _know Tony!" he shrieks, sitting up straight and spreading his arms in an involuntarily intimidating display. His eyes are round and piercing as he insists, "I know Tony better than anybody in_ the world_, so why don't you think I'm allowed to love him?"

Loki realizes the significance of what he just said when Thor's eyes snap wide open and his eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. His mouth hangs open for a second, and he and Thor stare, a bit overwhelmed, at each other.

He's never really told anybody that he feels like _that_ about Tony.

"You care about him that much?" Thor asks, and his voice is a lot quieter than it was moments ago.

Loki is thinking about not answering his brother at all, but he quickly reminds himself that he's not at all embarrassed about how he feels. There's a difference between being scared of your emotions and being ashamed of them. So he says, "More than anything."

Oh, shit. Things just got _serious_, because Loki's only been meditating on just how _gargantuan_ his love for Tony has so rapidly become for about a week. He hasn't put those feelings to words _ever_ before this.

Thor's eyes get tight around the corners, and he looks to the floor, his mouth setting into a grim, thin line. It suddenly occurs to Loki that not only is Thor concerned for his emotional wellbeing, but he's _threatened_. He feels exactly the same way Loki felt when Steve Rogers entered their lives; afraid of losing his brother.

"Thor…" Loki sighs, and instead of finishing whatever he might have said, he scoots over and wraps his arms around Thor's neck, rests his forehead against the man's temple. Thor flinches away from him, but Loki quickly places his palm against the man's cheek and pulls him closer again. He forces Thor to look him in the eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere," Loki says quietly.

"Loki–" Thor starts to protest, but Loki cuts him off with a sharp, brief glare.

"It's okay," Loki assures him, "I don't always have to be the one who's scared to death."

Thor's looking really hard at him now, and Loki _knows_ he's said the right thing, knows he's completely on target this time (_finally_).

"Tony's not going to change me or take me away," Loki goes on (although Tony _does_ have a possessive streak, Loki's independent enough to hold his own), "I've loved him for over a year, Thor. Not that you'd know."

Thor makes this dissatisfied noise, says, "I'm sorry."

Loki smiles a bit, shakes his head and replies, "It's okay. You know why?"

Thor doesn't say anything, but the way his eyes change signals acknowledgment, asks for an answer.

"_Tony's _why," Loki says, "If he does anything for me, it's a good thing. You don't have to worry."

Thor is silent and still, and he peers down into his lap. Loki watches him for a moment, wordless, and a rush of pride washes over him at the fact that _he's_ the confident one in this situation, that _he's_ the one who's helping the other, that he just became a whole lot surer about what to do with Tony.

"Are you going to hug me back or what?" Loki asks when Thor doesn't move for a solid minute, and he smirks when Thor looks up to meet his eyes.

Then Thor's folding him into this slightly awkward (only physically, considering the way they're sitting) embrace, and even though the hug is considerably gentler than what's usual for Thor, it's still pretty fucking tight. Loki laughs a bit and squeezes his arms around Thor's neck in a rare display of candid affection (_God_, it's been forever since he's been _this_ gentle with Thor), inciting his brother to do the same.

When they pull away from each other, Loki waves his cellphone a bit and says, "Now, I'm going to finish up this conversation with Tony, and you're going to wait for me and _quit fretting_, okay?"

Thor rolls his eyes in airy exasperation, but he's grinning as he does, and he stands to move towards the door. He scolds, obviously in jest, "Don't take too long."

"I'll try," Loki laughs, mimicking Thor's expression.

"I still don't trust Tony," Thor informs him, stops for a moment to gauge Loki's reaction to the statement.

"_My_ life," is all Loki says, and he quickly opens Tony's text as Thor chuckles quietly and shoulders his way down the hall. He reads:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**responsbility is for the weak. sex is for the strong.**_

_**does tht mean you're juliet? i thought you hated shit like that.**_

_**and i bet it is my business.**_

Loki smiles and settles back down on his mattress, types his reply:

_**From: Loki**_

_**Message:**_

_**You'll get what's coming to you, Tony. I assure you that.**_

_**And I'm comparing myself to Juliet because of her relationship with Romeo, not because of her sex. Obviously.**_

When Tony texts back, the message says:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**i hope i have something good coming to me. ;]**_

_**think about me when you go ~shopping~.**_

Loki hums softly, rubs his eyes and responds:

_**From: Loki**_

_**Message:**_

_**How could I not?**_

_**I'll talk to you later, k? And I'll see you tomorrow.**_

Tony says:

_**From: Tony**_

_**Message:**_

_**already missing you.**_

_Fuck_, Loki kind of wants to _die_ from both guilt and happiness when he reads that, and it takes the will of _God_ for him to turn his phone off and set it back on the nightstand. He closes his eyes for a moment and attempts to curb the boundless enthusiasm rising rapidly inside him, smiles in amusement at the thought of how intensely depressed he was just minutes ago. He was being truthful when he said Tony only does right by him; that is, if you count turning him into a ditzy schoolgirl as something _good_.

As Loki turns the light off and practically dances down the hallway, he starts to think about just _what _he's going to buy tomorrow. It's Tony's birthday in a week. Something tells Loki that Tony wouldn't be too terribly disappointed if he showed up at his house and simply offered himself.

That same something tells Loki that the feeling would be completely mutual.

* * *

**This twisted into something else when Thor walked in the room. I just thought I'd let you know that. **_**Uhmm**_**, the next one may or may not take a bit longer for me to finish, because, while it is lengthy, I've also been waiting for awhile to write it (and am therefore **_**thrilled**_** that I've gotten to this point).**

**I tell you guys with every update how much I **_**love **_**you, but it's never, ever, **_**ever**_** enough. You all are so amazing. I can never properly express my gratitude for your devotion in one go, so I'll do it in about forty goes (yes, I have over **_**forty**_** of these planned out so far). How does that sound? But, yeah. I want you guys to know that **_**Brothers**_** is for you just as much as it is for me. My love is your love.**

**Reviews and ideas are very much appreciated, my loves! The soapbox is always available, and don't be afraid to tell me about something you'd like to see happen later on.**

**- Gabi.**


	14. Rolling Like Thunder

**Title:** Rolling Like Thunder.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~40,170.  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, mention of Thor, Balder, Freyr, Freya, Frigga, Odin. Tony/Loki like _yeah_.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Warnings:** AU. A fuckload of cockblocking.  
**Summary:** "Tony, _stop_," Loki chokes through his laughter, grabbing at his friend's hand and squeezing. This is why his life would have been much better if only he'd met Tony earlier. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So I'd been really excited about writing this one for awhile now, and I hope it turns out as wonderfully as I hope it does. Uhm, I would like to point out that the Balder in this verse is not Marvel's dumb, brutish Balder, nor is he mythology's powderpuff. He is not Thor and Loki's brother; he is their cousin, and while that really doesn't coincide with mythology or canon, fuck it. Balder is mine, just like Freyr and Freya are mine. Sorry I took so long to put this one up; I'll have you know that I am a lazy bitch. Also, I'm not ignoring any comments on anything - again, I'm lazy as fuck. I do very much appreciate the feedback though, and I will reply to it... eventually.

ALSO, I warn you that this is a long motherfucker. A VERY long motherucker. Procede carefully.

* * *

He considers bringing his backpack with him when he remembers the psychology paper he _really _needs to finish (it's due _tomorrow morning_, ugh), but ultimately decides against the notion after only a few moments of thought. Something tells him that Tony won't loosen his tight grip on his attention long enough for him to concentrate on things like _homework_.

So Loki relocates his backpack to the trunk of his Elantra, stuffing it in alongside the brand-new gift bag (the contents of which I _won't_ reveal), shiny rolls of silver wrapping paper, and overflowing carton of books already crammed there. He takes a few moments to make sure everything is perfectly in place (just because he's a meticulous, critical little shit), and when he decides he's pleased with the arrangement of his trunk, he gets it firmly shut and locks the car down.

Loki feels just a bit naked without anything to carry (he's usually lugging _something _around wherever he may be, whether it's his backpack as he's going to class, a stack of books when he's working, or his laptop when he's relocating to a different room in his house) as he swiftly scales Tony's front steps and approaches the door. To be honest, he's kind of antsy, kind of anxious in a weird, inexplicable way. That could have to do with the fact that Thor will probably have a fit if he discovers where he is right now (not that Loki cares enough to let the thought stop him, _unh-uh_). Maybe it's because his coming here is actually a lot less like a friendly house call and a lot more like an invitation for Tony to just _take_ him. Perhaps he's just in one of those worked up, I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself-so-I'll-act-really-reckless sort of moods right now.

Whatever _it_ is, Loki pushes it far to the side and taps on Tony's doorbell twice. He always goes for ringing the bell (if it's available) instead of knocking whenever he's faced with the minor obstacle of a door. When he was a child, Loki would feel somewhat _thrilled_ every time he got the chance to ring a doorbell, to listen to the melody that seemed to echo from inside the house he was preparing to enter. In contrast, Thor took delight on banging on doors as hard and as long as he possibly could.

Loki's on the verge of slipping back into panic mode at the thought of _Thor_ (Since when does he let his brother get to him like _this?_ Oh, yeah. Since forever.) when the front door nearly _flies_ open. Suddenly, he's looking into Tony's exceptionally bright, open face, and _God_, that's just _wonderful_ like nothing else in the world. He grins.

"You were expecting me?" Loki teases in a light, purring tone (shit, that was forward), easily slipping past Tony (who looks like he could seriously be going into cardiac arrest) into the doorway. He only has time to turn and face his friend before he's being wrapped up in a hug that could rival Thor's in terms of _damn, that's heartfelt_.

"_You're_ happy to see me," Loki laughs, and he actually feels like he could die when Tony hums, buries his face in his jaw, and runs his hands slowly, firmly up his back. _Jesus Christ_, he's nearly shivering from the intimacy, and even though this kind of affection is a bit uncharacteristic of Tony (there's quite a difference between flirtatiousness and downright _clinginess_), Loki's not complaining about it or worrying at all. Yet.

"I'm _ecstatic_," Tony drawls against his cheek, and it's a whole lot like a kiss but totally _not_ at the same time when he mouths, lazy and gentle, against Loki's skin. _Oh my God, __**what is he doing**__?_

"Tony, please," Loki snaps a bit breathlessly. His tone is terse and cold, saying _stop, let me go, this is too much_, but his body is asking Tony to _keep the fuck going_. He slides one lanky arm around Tony's shoulders, moves the other around his back, and runs a hand through the man's conspicuously messy hair.

And, really. Stop looking at Loki that way. Would _you_ reject pleasure so, _so_ _sweet_ if you were in his position?

"Please what?" Tony asks, and he briefly pulls away to flash Loki this devilish smirk that does _dangerous_ things to the man's heart. Then he's leaning in and pressing his forehead against Loki's, gazing at him with these dark, heady, _hungry_ eyes that absolutely murder Loki.

"Tony, you're killing me," Loki half-chokes, half-chuckles out (he keeps jumping between amusement and irritation and it's _really_ scaring him), and it isn't until his back connects with something solid and flat (the _door_, holy shit) that he realizes Tony's got him completely trapped (that's the second time Tony has done something like this, mind you). Fuck_fuck__**fuck**_.

"That's okay," Tony chuckles, "I know CPR." Loki is totally unable to think of something to say, unable to _move_, before Tony's kissing him.

And that's an unsettling, startling, _mindblowing_ gesture, both because of its suddenness and its tenderness. Loki was honestly expecting a rough and demanding clash of the lips, but Tony is fucking _savoring _him, just barely touching their mouths together, and he's pretty sure he's going to go insane from _soft _Tony is (because if you asked Loki what kind of lover he thought Tony would be, he'd bet _fiery_ instead of _gentle_ in a heartbeat). As if he hasn't already.

"_Stop, __**Tony**_," Loki moans, but he contradicts his plea by tangling his fingers further in Tony's hair and tugging him even closer, if possible. Tony resists the pull and groans deeply, his whole body going as taut as a blade. He and Loki stare at each other for a long moment, hardly breathing.

It's hotter than _hell_ in here.

Then Tony says, a little out of the blue, "Hey, Loki," and he _smiles_. _**What**_.

"_Hey, Loki?_" Loki mimics his friend, his tone dripping with disbelief as he quirks an eyebrow and asks, "Shall I expect rape first, _hello_ second every time I walk into your house from now on?"

Tony laughs quietly and bows his head to nuzzle just under Loki's jaw, and _oh_, that feels fucking _perfect_. He murmurs, in a voice so sultry that it's like touching boiling water to _listen_ to, "Rape implies that you don't like it."

Loki lets his hands fall from Tony's hair to rest limply on the man's shoulders, argues, only a bit weakly, "I meant what I said." Because _rape_ also means that the act was forced in some way, never mind how much the forced-upon party may enjoy said act. Oh my God, what am I saying?

"_Nah_," Tony hums, "I think you _loved_ it." He's rubbing his hands up Loki's sides as he says this, rucking his t-shirt up, and _Je__**sus**_. Loki's body temperature is going through the fucking _roof_, and his head is pounding, and his skin is burning and _gah_. He doesn't even know _what_ they're doing anymore, has no earthly idea _where_ they are in relationship territory. Thanks, Tony.

"I didn't come here to have sex with you," Loki sighs and, somewhat hypocritically, turns his head to kiss against the side of Tony's neck a couple of times, drawing tiny gasps from the man's throat. Tony moves to look at Loki with a slightly wounded expression.

And Loki's telling the truth; he _didn't _come here to bone with Tony, even _if_ he _really_ wants to and even _if_ the man is practically begging him to spread his legs. It's because it's a Sunday night, because he has homework to do, because Thor's still flipping shit about Tony, because _he's_ still flipping shit about Tony, because Tony's not acting like himself tonight (he really isn't; Loki's never seen the man so uncontrolled and out of his element, regardless of the fact that he _is _starving for him), because it's _not_ _quite_ Tony's birthday, and because fear is a powerful thing that Loki hasn't already jumped his friend's bones like a cat in heat. God knows that if circumstances were different, they'd be in Tony's bed and rolling like thunder at this very moment.

"And _I_ didn-" Tony starts to protest, but Loki cuts him off with a quick, humming kiss to the lips. It's pretty effective in shutting the man up (as well as making Loki feel both absolutely wonderful and devious as hell).

"Don't," Loki says, fixing Tony with a gaze that's simultaneously piercing and mild, "I know that's one of the things you wanted from me tonight. You don't have to be embarrassed."

Tony shuts his eyes for a few seconds, and the way he scrunches his face up and scowls conveys so much guilt and _shit, I should have known _that Loki almost feels remorseful himself. He quietly replies, "It's not my fault you drive me so fucking crazy."

Loki can't help but smile a bit at Tony's words, even though they _do_ upset him to an extent (it's difficult to feel great about screwing with Tony's mindset almost every time they're in contact with one another). He embraces the man, more properly (chastely) this time, inquires, "I do that to you?"

Tony leans his head against Loki's and loops his arms around the man's waist, answers, "Yeah, more than I can say."

Well, fuck. That's just _awesome_.

Tony moves back a step to give Loki some elbow/breathing room (not that Loki particularly needs or wants it, if you know what I mean), and he says, "I have something for you."

Gifts? There're _gifts_?

For the record, the longer Loki stands in Tony's house, the _guiltier_ he feels, and you know why? I'll tell you why.

Tony's the one whose birthday is in a week, and all he's getting is _pushed away_ (let's disregard the fact that Loki's presence in any way, shape, or form is probably more than spectacular to him). Meanwhile, Loki's being smothered with love and is about to receive some unknown gift that, knowing Tony, will probably be fucking _amazing_ to him. See the imbalance?

So Loki automatically says, "I don't want it," even though he _adores_ getting things (all _kinds_ of things) from Tony. Look at him trying to be a good, honest person. Is he succeeding yet? (_He_ doesn't think that he is.)

Tony gives Loki this snarky, _oh yeah?_ kind of look and questions, "You sure? I think you'd like it."

"I'm certain I would, but I can't take it," Loki objects, glancing at the floor for a moment, "I'd feel horrible."

Tony pauses for a moment, tilts his head to recapture Loki's attention and asks, "Now why'd you feel like that? It's not like you're stealing from me."

"That's _exactly_ what it's like, Tony," Loki sighs, and he hooks his arms around Tony's neck to pull him closer again (Is it manipulation or is it desire, you ask? Why do you think there's a difference?), "I don't deserve anything from you."

Tony starts to shake his head before Loki's even finished speaking, says, "No, no, no, no, no. You deserve the _world _from me, Loki."

Loki squeezes his eyes shut with a grimace, half-whines, "But I'm always hurting you–"

His arguing is cut short when Tony presses him back up against the door (_fuck_), forcing his eyes open as he does, puts his lips to his ear and says, "Don't do that. I hate it when you do that."

Loki would definitely have a lot more bite in his voice when he says, "That's what I'm talking about," if Tony weren't smoothing his hands down his sides and around his back, mercilessly reducing his limbs to gelatin. Always count on Tony to take every single ounce of ire out of him.

"_Come on_, Loki," Tony pleads in a high, keening tone, turning the full force of what has to be the most intense and _adorable_ pout Loki's ever seen on him, "Take it for me."

Loki scrutinizes Tony with stony eyes, trying to detach himself from the awesome persuasive power of his friend's hands, voice, and expression. He isn't very successful, to be honest.

"Fine," Loki eventually breathes, and it's hard for him to _not_ be amused and enamored with the way Tony's face splits into this thrilled, childlike grin of epic proportions. Maybe accepting this whatever _is_ a good idea (that doesn't stop Loki from feeling like a greedy bitch, though, never mind that he isn't actually asking for things).

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Tony exclaims, and he wraps his arms around Loki's middle and lifts him completely off the ground, kissing his jaw just a few million times and generally showering him with affection. Loki can't help but laugh at the gesture (because it's a bit ironic, in a completely humorous and not at all pathetic way, that _Tony's_ the one doing the thanking in this situation).

"If it makes you that happy, you're welcome," Loki replies as Tony sets him back on his feet and starts, clearly eager, towards his bedroom. He follows after his friend with a renewed sense of enthusiasm, smoothing his hair down out of habit (because messy tresses are one of the many things that will drive Loki absolutely _insane_).

"Remember that CD you asked me to burn for you forever ago?" Tony asks. Loki stops in the doorway of the man's bedroom, watching Tony sift through the grand mess that is his desk.

"No…?" he answers after briefly combing his memory. Loki's only thinking back about a couple of weeks, but by _forever_, Tony could mean from between three days to a whole two months ago. Which is _crazy_, but Tony's crazy, am I right?

"That's understandable," Tony laughs, turning to face Loki and holding one of those unnecessarily colorful, store-bought vinyl CD cases in his hand. Loki moves closer, his interest piqued, as Tony says, "Sorry for taking so long."

"I'd worry if you _didn't_ take a million years," Loki hums in reply, and he takes the CD from Tony to examine it for a moment. He's about an inch and a half from totally losing his shit when he reads what Tony's scrawled across the front.

It's_ perfect_.

"We're listening to it. Now," Loki insists, immediately going for Tony's computer. He's (very uncharacteristically) sitting on the edge of the desk chair as he clicks the monitor to life.

"What's the password?" Loki asks as Tony presses up flush against his back. He lifts his head to appraise his friend with a highly-satisfied expression, grins when Tony slides his fingers on top of his own and guides them over the keyboard.

"It's _Loki_," Tony says with a small chuckle, and the answer is both perplexing and delightful.

"As in, my name?" Loki questions, just to be certain. After all, he doesn't want to look any more selfish than he does already (even though asking probably accomplishes that much better than simply typing his name in would).

"_No_," Tony replies, bending over Loki's shoulder to type, with both of their fingers, _low-key_. He smirks, says, "Like that."

"Oh, how clever you are," Loki jokes as he hits the enter key, leaning down to press open the disk tray (the computer's hard drive is under the desk) and place the CD inside it. Tony drapes his arms around his shoulders, nuzzles behind his ear and down his neck with a tiny purr.

And you know, Tony's actually _really_ good at this whole _get in my bed and be my boyfriend_ sort of thing. What makes him even better at it is the fact that his bed is only about _five feet_ away right now. For fucking serious.

"Thank you, Tony," Tony says pointedly, and Loki laughs at the obvious sarcasm and accusation in the man's voice. He slips an arm over his head and behind him to rub Tony's shoulder.

"_Thank you_," Loki drones, turning to smile at his friend, "I love it." And he does, almost enough to make him forget about how he _isn't_ supposed to have even taken it in the first place. The world just works in odd ways sometimes, don't you think?

"I love _you_," Tony croons in reply, quickly moving to capture Loki's lips in a firm kiss. He nips and nudges his way down the man's chin, his neck, and Loki's not sure whether he should enjoy or reject this. Everything inside him but his rationality is screaming _enjoy it enjoy it_, and while that may be pretty substantial, you have to consider that Loki relies rather heavily on his judgment. Unfortunately.

Loki's about to say something in protest (fucking _logic_, always getting in the way when he wants to have _fun_), but Tony is suddenly swiveling the desk chair around and getting to his knees in front of it, and Loki honest to _God_ thinks _Holy shit, is he going to propose to me?_. A noise that's half-surprised, half-pleasured escapes him when Tony leans over his lap and sucks a kiss against the base of his throat, and what_what__**what the fuck is going on?**_

(Too much. For both of them.)

"_Tony_, wait," Loki says. He grasps at Tony's collarbone, uses the other to grip the man's chin and force him to meet his eyes. Tony's gaze is unfocused and dazed, and for a second, Loki's afraid that the man is… well, that he's high. The thought almost sends him into a rage.

But _no_. No, no, no. Tony wouldn't do something so stupid. He knows better. Of course.

"What, Tony?" Loki finds himself asking, and it's almost surprising (to him) that he's not bitching or freaking out right now, "What's the matter?" Because something _is_ the matter. Something _has_ to be the matter.

Remember how Loki usually doesn't fret whenever he sees a touch of melancholy in Tony's eyes, mostly because it's always there? Now is not usual. Now, Loki is seriously starting to worry, and Tony's watching him so wistfully, and the air between them is painful in the way it's unnecessary, and oh God, _something's. Fucking. __**Wrong**_. There's no feasible reason for why Tony would be acting the way he is (if there is one, Loki's either too blind or too afraid to see it).

Tony stares at him for a moment, and his gradual coming back to himself is almost painfully apparent in the way his eyes get harder, deeper, in the way the tension in his body fizzles out like a circuit shorting. Loki scowls.

"Tony, you're scaring me…" Loki starts to say, but the words in his throat all but evaporate when Tony makes this frustrated noise, gripping his hands tightly and threading their fingers together. It's a grounding action, saying clearly and loudly _hold on, this is going to be rough_. And that frightens the _shit_ out of Loki (once a coward, always a coward).

"It's just that–" Tony begins a bit snippily, and then he's taking this abrupt pause, his eyes rolling back and his mouth screwing up. Loki tenses, alarmed, before Tony practically blurts, "I really, really, _really_ fucking love you, okay? Like, I'm _in love _with you, Loki."

Loki's eyes go wide and round with _shockfearawe_, because even though he _knows_ this, has _been_ knowing it for a long time, there's something distinctly different and unsettling about hearing Tony voice his feelings so candidly. Loki is speaking out of what could only be classified as involuntary distress when he starts babbling, "I know, Tony, you don't have to–"

"_Wait_," Tony cuts him off sharply, squeezing Loki's hands hard enough to make him flinch (_ouch_, Tony; Loki's delicate, remember?), "Let me say this. Because I'm probably not going to be able to later."

Loki swallows thickly, manages to nod despite that his whole _being_ is defying this. He doesn't want to hear _any_ of this; he's not ready yet.

Tony brushes his thumbs against Loki's palms, probably to calm him down or whatever, says, "This is insane. _I'm _insane, you're making me that way, and I don't know how much longer I can do this."

Loki bites down hard on his bottom lip so that he can't disrupt Tony, because _goddamn_, does he want to apologize/complain/yell/cry/_something_ at his friend's words. Imagine how it feels to find out that _you're_ the reason your best friend/borderline significant other is practically on the edge of sanity.

"This is hard," Tony breathes, and a small, bitter chuckle hooks at the end of his statement, "And I mean that about both _what_ I'm saying and that I'm _saying_ it. I'm struggling here, Loki."

And Loki can't help but break his silence to ask, "What do you want me to do about that?" So much for self-control.

Tony's body goes momentarily rigid at the question, and his brow furrows a bit. He says, like it should be completely obvious (and it is), "Well, I want you to give me a chance."

Loki doesn't know how to react to that, never mind that he was totally expecting Tony's answer. So, like he does in response to almost anything he can't talk or charm his way into fixing (as if he needs to _fix_ what Tony had to say, _ugh_), he smiles and laughs like the jackass he is. It's not the best reaction, but Tony's perfectly aware of what it means (thank God for that).

Tony's face takes on a slightly confused expression, and he shifts his weight from one knee to the other as he asks, "What? Is it _me?_ Because I can be whatever you wa–"

Loki's laughter quickly disappears then; the very last thing he wants is for Tony to _change_ (do you know how _dreadful_ it would be if he did that?). His smile softens a bit as he shakes his head, frames Tony's face with his hands and interrupts him with, "_Stop it_. I love you exactly how you are, you dolt."

Tony looks simultaneously elated with and thrown by Loki's answer. He laughs, only slightly forced, "What's stopping you, then? And don't say you're scared, because if you do, I'm seriously going to scream."

With an unintentionally irritated sigh, Loki releases Tony and leans back in his chair, replies, "Then I don't have anything to say, Tony."

"_Lokiii…_" Tony whines, and he lays his head in Loki's lap and slumps down on his haunches, frustration and helplessness evident in the line of his body, in the curve of his spine. It makes Loki feel fucking horrible, seeing his friend so desperate (and being the only one to blame for that). And people wonder how it's possible for him to have such low self-esteem (it's because he's always fucking things up, _like this_).

Actually, this is a spectacular example of _why_ Loki's so afraid to just acquiesce to Tony's pleas. Do you see the mess he's making right now? He's not even _trying_ to screw things up, and that's all he seems to be succeeding at doing (_of course_). Everything he does is a mistake, an accident, a crash, a wrong turn.

Loki sighs, says, "Tell me to go, okay? Kick me out. I don't want to keep hurting you." And he doesn't. To be scathingly honest, Loki would much prefer it if Tony let go of him and saved himself than if he continued to welcome disappointment. Loki's aware that separation would probably be a slow, painful death sentence to Tony. He _also_ knows that if his friend is good at anything, it's forgetting and moving on (_sob_).

"No," Tony retorts, voice muted and low. He gets to his feet like a limp, lifeless marionette, and Loki feels somewhat mechanical as he lets the man pull his hands away (Lord knows he'd rather keep holding on).

Loki watches, only a little (lot) heartbroken, as Tony walks around the chair to throw himself on his bed. And do know what makes this situation even _shittier_ (because there is always room for worse, and no reason why there shouldn't be)?:

The fact that Tony's really _not_ as upset with Loki as he should be. The fact that he's most likely blaming _himself_ for the crappiness of this whole thing. The fact that Loki's only holding back _for_ Tony, not in spite of him, and the fact that he really can't tell him this without giving away too much information, too soon.

So what does Loki do now? He definitely didn't come here to make a mess of his relationship with Tony, and isn't it grand that that's _exactly_ what he's doing? _Wonderful_, I say.

After taking a moment to consider his options, Loki quickly and efficiently pulls up Tony's media player and puts the CD, _his_ CD (_oh yes_), on. As soon as music, sweet and timeless (the very _best_ kind of music, in Loki's opinion), starts flowing from the speakers, he rises from his seat and crawls into Tony's bed beside his friend. And before you ask, he actually _does_ know what he's doing (contrary to popular belief).

Tony's eyes slide like soap slowly slipping down glass to regard Loki. There's just a hint of question in the way he looks at him, in the way one of his eyebrows angles only slightly, but his gaze is mostly mildly interested. He doesn't say anything.

Loki smiles a bit at Tony, moves to straddle his friend's thighs and laughs quietly when Tony's apathetic eyes go suddenly, comically wide and confused. Placing a light, gentle hand on Tony's abdomen, Loki gives a pacifying shake of his head and murmurs, "Calm down. We can do this, remember?"

Tony watches him hawkishly, grumbles, "You're not helping me, Loki."

Loki's smirk turns wry and sour when Tony says that. He changes his position so that he's laying flat against Tony's front, crosses his arms over the man's chest and props his chin up on them. He says, "I'm sorry. You know I'm not trying to."

Tony makes this horrible face that's both amused and vexed, replies, "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"Tony, talk to me," Loki sort of-kind of _pleads_, scowling deeply, "You're not going to kick me out, so say something nice."

"Of course I'm not kicking you out…" Tony sighs, and Loki starts a bit when he feels the man's hand rest at the base of his back, possessive and saying _stay here, don't go_. Tony is silent for a few moments, just staring at the ceiling, and Loki knows better than to rush him. _That_ would be an awful move.

And then Tony says, "I'm not saying that you should because of my birthday; I'm not saying that _at all_, but it would probably be the best present in the _world _if you went out with me."

Loki hums, pleased and flawlessly unaffected as he drawls, "_Okay_…"

"And you can totally disregard that I'm gonna be twenty-one in a week," Tony rambles on, his gaze still fixed overhead, "Because I just want you… I want you to think about it for–"

"For you?" Loki cuts him off, raising an eyebrow as if to say _Right?_, because Tony does have a tendency to mask his own desires in what walks, talks, and sounds like altruism (not to call the man out on his bullshit or anything).

"Yes!" Tony laughs at first, but then his face is screwing up and he's shaking his head, looking at Loki and saying, "Wait, no. For _you_, not for me."

Loki rolls his eyes in a way that manages not to be insolent, argues, "Tony, I do enough things for myself. I'm probably one of the most selfish people you know."

"_You_ think you are," Tony says pointedly, and Loki is secretly thrilled with the way the man's expression takes on an uplifted quality (cue mental fist-pump), "Loki, you can be incredibly selfless."

"_Self-deprecating_," Loki corrects, nestling his cheek into the curve of his arms, "There's a difference, love."

Tony's eyes light up at the pet-name (_oh God_, that's just an amazing sight), and he chuckles, "Whatever."

"No, _not_ whatever," Loki retorts. His voice is hard and insistent, but he's grinning as he speaks. Tony's eyes briefly reel back in an exaggerated demonstration of aggravation, and Loki laughs outright at the display.

"What I'm _trying to say_ _is_, I _love_ you, and don't think about me, okay? Even if I _am_ guilt-tripping you like there's no tomorrow," Tony says somewhat breathlessly. He gives Loki a hint of a smirk, raises his head completely off of his pillow to see him better. Loki returns the smile.

"Alright, Tony," he easily replies, leans forward to briefly touch his lips to Tony's in a not-quite kiss before leisurely rolling onto his side. Loki relaxes against the mattress like it's his own, and Tony sits up to peer down at him. After a beat of comfortable silence, Loki asks, "What?"

"You're real nice to look at," Tony says, crossing his legs. His eyes sweep the length of Loki's body, and it's just a little hilarious that Tony can go from _you're driving me crazy because I love yooouuu_ to _damn, you're fine_ in about five seconds flat.

"I've heard," Loki purrs with a touch of sarcasm, enjoying the way Tony impishly bugs his eyes at him. He buries his face in the pillow beneath his head and stretches, catlike and flirtatious and just the way Tony likes, because it's totally possible for the two of them to be passionate, dramatic, and playful all within the same hour. They're odd and perfect like that.

"Get ugly or something," Tony abruptly admonishes, and Loki just _can't _contain the cackling, unadulterated laugh that escapes him. Tony chuckles a bit, leans over Loki to talk and kiss into his hair, "You're too fucking pretty."

"I'm _not_ pretty," Loki protests half-heartedly, curling up a bit, "That's such a gendered adjective, Tony." And really, they might as well be dating already with the way they're acting (which is like a couple of high school sweethearts; completely infatuated with one another). The only things separating them from that class are fear, seven days, Thor and Steve, and their relationship statuses on Facebook.

"Okay, how about gorgeous?" Tony tries, hugging against Loki's side, "Or beautiful? Or sexy?"

"_Stoooppp_," Loki groans, and he keeps his face hidden, "You're going to make me start hemorrhaging."

"I'm just being truthful!" Tony insists with a laugh, "Which is, like, _phenomenal_ for me."

Loki hums in something like agreement, wriggling in Tony's embrace to look at the man. He smirks upon seeing the bright expression on his friend's face, quips, "Well, hello there."

Tony grins, nuzzles their noses together in a way that's _far _too mushy and romantic for their relationship to be some kind of normal (which is both positive and negative; positive because it implies that _holy fuck, this actually means something_; you don't see Tony nuzzling or cooing over anybody else, negative because confusion and misunderstanding are givens), and says, "Hi."

Loki stifles a laugh and listens to the music playing, asks, only a bit (yeah, _right_) out of the blue, "Can I tell you a story?"

Tony looks a bit taken aback at the question at first (Can you blame him? It was random as fuck.), but soon he's releasing Loki and rolling on his side as well, replying, "Go ahead. I like stories."

"Good," Loki says, turning his head to look at Tony as he speaks, "This song just reminded me of something for whatever reason."

"Do tell," Tony drawls, and he rubs his head against his pillow in an almost canine manner. It's a little funny to watch.

Loki moves to run a hand through his hair, briefly mulling over the memory at the forefront of his mind before just saying, "Thor used to dress me in our parents' clothes."

Tony huffs a laugh and asks, "Both parents?" Like that means something when you're children.

Loki smiles, replies, "_Yes_. Whenever we were bored, he'd drag me around and dress me up."

_**He's nine years-old. Very shy. Natural pessimist. Mopey.**_

_**Thor keeps telling him to hold still, but Loki doesn't want to. Right about now, he could be in the kitchen with Mother, and she could be showing him how to bake macaroni and cheese, and he could be happy and undisturbed and in his own clothing. That would be nice, right?**_

_**But **_**nooo**_**, of course Thor's the one having fun and getting his way. Thor always gets to do what he wants. Thor's always smiling. Thor's always satisfied. Never Loki.**_

_**His young mind keeps telling him there should be a reason **_**why**_** he's always so frustrated and cranky, but his logic is too limited at this point to find it yet. **_

"It's probably because I always wanted more of this, more of that," Loki says, "More love, more sleep, more alone time, more books, more quiet, more, more, _more_."

"And you never got it," Tony muses.

Loki smirks bitterly, asks, "Have I ever stopped being greedy?"

"_**Put your arms up," Thor demands, waving the **_**Ramones**_** t-shirt in his hands like a war flag. Loki pouts. Shit, he doesn't **_**want**_** to put his fucking arms up. **_

"_**Put your own arms up," Loki retorts, and he's doing the heavy-browed, pouty-lip thing he does whenever he's trying to gain sympathy. It doesn't work on anyone but Thor and Freya.**_

_**Thor ceases his movements and frowns, pokes Loki in the center of his narrow, pale chest. Loki yelps as Thor pleads, "Come on, Loki. Just for a minute."**_

"_**Nooo…" Loki whines, and he casts his face to the ground, defiant and unwilling. He actually thinks that Thor's fallen prey to his wiles when the boy doesn't respond for a few moments, but that assumption is quickly proven wrong when he's having a t-shirt unceremoniously **_**shoved**_** over his head. **_**Thorrrr.**

"_**Stop it!" Loki wails, wrestling against the sea of cotton he's drowning in. Thor makes a frustrated noise and grabs at Loki's shoulders, and honestly, that only makes Loki feel even more helpless and aggravated.**_

"_**Calm down and put your arms in the sleeves!" Thor orders roughly, and Loki really, **_**really**_** hates Thor's bossy voice. It scares the fuck out of him.**_

"_**They're **_**my **_**arms, Thor!" Loki cries, but he's following his brother's instructions like a puppet that can't help but do what its master commands. Of course.**_

"Are you saying that Thor has been controlling you since you were this big?" Tony asks abruptly, and he holds his index finger and thumb about an inch apart in demonstration.

"Technically, yes," Loki says, "Except back then, it was like _oh, that's just Thor's personality and I'm his little brother, why should I care?_. Now, it's _I'm my own goddamn person, so get the fuck, Thor_."

"But that doesn't make it okay that he bullied you," Tony argues. Is it odd (sad) that Loki both agrees and disagrees with him?

"It _was_ okay, though," Loki sighs, "Because it wasn't wrong when we were children. It was just _Thor's the ringleader and Loki's his assistant_, you know? _Thor leads and Loki follows. Thor's the loud, Loki's the soft. Thor's yang, Loki's yin._ That's all it was, Tony. Now it's _Thor is a junior and a linebacker and he's got a fucked-up relationship with Sif and he crashed his car when he was eighteen and he's popular as fuck and he's got a bossy streak and he happens to be older and living in Loki's house_, while _Loki's a sophomore and he works at a library and he loves his best friend and he happened to be in that accident and he's also got bipolar disorder and a flair for the dramatic and won't take your bullshit_. Do you see what I mean?"

Tony is smiling as he questions, "So things are more complex because you're older?"

"_Yes_," Loki breathes, "That's _exactly_ what I'm saying."

_**Thor is in the closet again, and Loki **_**really**_** feels like he's going to cry. Great. In a feeble attempt to distract himself, he focuses his attention on the television facing the bed. The volume is low and there's what looks like one of those silly soap operas Mother loves so much on it. And suddenly, Loki remembers how he could be watching **_**Ed, Edd n' Eddy **_**right now. Oh God.**_

"I loved that show," Tony exclaims. Loki leans over and kisses Tony to shut him up.

_**Thor emerges from the abyss with a pair of pants that look like they could just swallow Loki whole (not to mention that they'd probably blind the fuck out of you in the sun, what with all their luster). The boy starts to say whatever, and Loki really doesn't care, but the next thing he knows, he's staring at Thor and his brother looks like he's about to part the Red Sea or something. Uhm, what?**_

"_**Loki, you can't always cry like that!" Thor fusses, moving over to the bed and dragging the pants he's holding along the carpet as he does. He gets really angry every time Loki starts to tear up, and Loki doesn't get why. He loves his brother to death, but fuck if he understands him yet.**_

"Why the fuck would you get pissed off with someone for crying?" Tony asks a bit testily. The look on his face suggests that he already knows the answer to that question, though.

"Thor doesn't know how to deal with negative emotions," Loki replies, "One of the first things I ever learned how to do was face my feelings, and Thor _still_ hasn't gotten around to attending that class. That's why he freaks out every time I get upset or start crying, why when he gets angry he gets murderous, and why if he isn't satisfied or occupied in some way, he'll turn irrational and hyperactive. My psychology professor calls it Barney syndrome."

Tony laughs a little, questions, "Why _Barney_ syndrome?"

"You know how on the TV show, everything and everyone is always wonderful and carefree and happy-go-lucky to the point of _oh my God, kill me now before I start shitting rainbows_?" Loki asks, and when Tony nods, he points out, "They always show you how to have fun and be optimistic, but never what to do if things actually go wrong. If there's a problem, you have to fix it right away. It's impossible to be unhappy. That's why people who have Barney syndrome can only handle the good; never the bad."

"Clever," Tony hums, and Loki allows himself to smile.

_**Loki scrubs a bit at his eyes with the heel of his palm, says, "Sometimes I can't help it, Thor. Not everyone is a brick wall."**_

_**Thor pushes Loki's hands away from his face to wipe his eyes himself. He grumbles, "You have to **_**try**_** not to do that, though. That's not cool."**_

"Did you stop?" Tony asks.

"No," Loki answers, quiet, "I was always too myself to ever do that. Unfortunately."

Tony doesn't say anything in response, but he gives Loki this look that's upset and incredulous and reassuring all at once. Loki accepts the kiss he receives.

_**Loki is silent and still as Thor cleans his cheeks. He watches his brother as he works, blinks only when Thor's thumbs brush a little too close to his eyes.**_

"_**You gonna to quit whining?" Thor asks once he's done, and the way he voices the question is both assertive and concerned. Loki hates it when Thor and Mother do that; it makes it really fucking hard to be terribly miffed by them.**_

"_**Sure," Loki says with an air of resignation, and he nods at the pants in Thor's hand and inquires, "Are you going to make me put those on?"**_

_**Thor hesitates, and the pause is miraculous and amazing and **_**oh so good**_** because of how very rare it can be. Loki smiles cryptically as Thor retorts, a bit morosely, "Will you do it?"**_

_**Loki slides off of the edge of the bed and grabs the silver (**_**silver**_**) pants from his brother, stepping into them and mumbling, "It couldn't hurt."**_

"_Silver_ pants?" Tony interjects, and he bursts into laughter that's equally ridiculous and amazing in its fervor.

"It was… 2001 when this happened, Tony," Loki points out, pausing when he has to make some mental calculations, "Mother was thirty-three when I was born, so that means she grew up during the sixties and seventies. Remember what fashion was like back then?"

"Yeah, fucking _ridiculous_," Tony replies, cackling almost uncontrollably (and over _silver pants_).

"_Tonyyy_," Loki whines, poking his friend's side, "We were kids, and Mother's very sentimental. I bet you if I looked, I could still find those pants in her closet."

"Oh my _God_, we have to go apprehend them and like, make a shrine or something," Tony says, and Loki laughs wholeheartedly at the idea, "_Or_, we could frame them and have shared custody of the pants, and we'd each have a week with them, and–"

"Tony, _stop_," Loki chokes through his laughter, grabbing at his friend's hand and squeezing. This is why his life would have been much better if only he'd met Tony earlier.

"_**They don't fit," Thor notes as Loki hugs as much of the pants' waistband as he can around his stomach. Loki makes a face at Thor.**_

"_**Oh, really? I never noticed," he snarks. Loki learned how to use sarcasm when he was eight. It's worked out spectacularly for him since then.**_

_**Thor glares and tramples back into the closet for a belt, grumbling, "Momma says it's not nice when you talk like that."**_

"_**But her and Father do it all the time," Loki objects, "And it's not like **_**you**_** always follow the rules."**_

_**Thor doesn't say anything in response, but he makes his harrumphing, elephantine noise that sounds a lot like grudging acquiescence to Loki (aww yeah). Loki stands awkwardly in his silver sea of fabric for a few minutes, grasping at his waistband and trying to cover his butt, and **_**God**_**, he feels extraordinarily stupid. It's amazing how easily Thor can do that to him.**_

_**After about a million years of discomfort and aggravation, Thor **_**finally**_** emerges from the closet with a belt.**_

"Don't laugh," Loki orders. Tony tenses.

_**A lime green pyramid belt, complete with an ugly-ass turquoise, flower-shaped buckle covered in sparkles. Always count on Thor to pick the stupidest shit in the whole closet.**_

"Holy shit…" Tony whimpers, nearly gnawing a hole through his lip so that he doesn't say much further.

"_**Thor, that's horrible," Loki complains, but Thor's already shoving the horrendous article at him. The fluorescent green/glittery turquoise combination makes Loki want to both vomit and claw his own eyes out.**_

"_**It's colorful," Thor argues, waving the belt around some to get Loki to take it from him, "Don't rock stars wear colorful stuff?"**_

"_**Yeah, but things can be colorful without being ugly," Loki says, and he's trying to maneuver the piece-of-shit belt into the pants' belt loops. It's a hard task to accomplish when the waistband is acting like a fucking snake and the belt has a million silver studs being very pokey and obstructive on it.**_

"_**You think everything is ugly," Thor insists somewhat matter-of-factly, moving closer to help Loki out. And when I say **_**help out**_**, I mean **_**slap Loki's hands out of the way so he can do it himself**_**. Loki doesn't mind (things always turn out better when Thor's the one doing them anyways).**_

"That's not true," Tony cuts in.

"I used to think so," Loki throws back, "Shut up and listen, you."

"_**Rock stars aren't ugly," Loki retorts, rerouting the conversation to his liking because he knows Thor's too one track-minded to care or realize the change. He picks at the oversized clothing adorning his body, scowls at the tacky, hideous belt holding it all together.**_

"_**That guy with the tongue is, though," Thor laughs. He looks Loki up and down like an artist appraising his work, searching for flaws in his design.**_

"Gene Simmons?" Tony asks. Loki makes this growling, irritated noise that quickly renders Tony silent.

"_**Am I too lame for you?" Loki asks in a dull voice. He feels like the Scarecrow on **_**The Wizard of Oz**_**, both because of his foolish appearance and the sensation of ill balance he gets every time he moves even slightly.**_

"_**Yeah. You need something else," Thor replies, insensitive and blunt as usual, and he disappears into the closet again, leaving an exasperated and nervous Loki in his wake. When he comes back, he's handling a pair of large, red sunglasses and a fedora with a peacock feather pinned to the hatband.**_

"_What_, Tony?" Loki sighs when said man nudges his side, childishly raising his hand for permission to speak.

"You might think this is a stupid question, but I swear to God it's actually _really_ important…" Tony prefaces, and Loki can't help but groan and roll his eyes.

"Just ask me," Loki snaps, turning onto his side to face his friend.

Tony smiles a bit, questions, "Where the fuck do your parents buy their clothes? Because I'd like to shop at _that_ store if you know what I mean."

Loki glares at Tony for a moment, prompting the man to laugh. He chooses not to answer.

"_**Pick one," Thor orders, holding the items out for Loki's inspection. It doesn't take long for Loki to make his decision.**_

"_**Hat," he says, and Thor automatically stuffs the fedora onto his head, jumbling the already untidy mess of curls there. Loki whines quietly in discomfort, pushes the brim back on his forehead and watches as Thor dons the sunglasses he holds. And of course they look a lot better on Thor than anything Loki's wearing does on him. Loki's actually pretty sure that if they switched clothing, Thor wouldn't look half as bizarre or awkward as he.**_

"_**Wait!" Thor exclaims, pushing the fedora's brim so far down that Loki's only allowed a crescent of vision, "Rock stars wear their hats like that."**_

_**Loki frowns, complains, "But I can't see anything."**_

"_**Why would you need to see when all you're going to be doing is singing?" Thor asks, quite rhetorically, but Loki's a critical little shit that loves to be logical in the face of his brother's intuition.**_

"_**I'm not going to be singing, Thor," Loki says, pushing his hat up enough for him to be able to see clearly, but not so much that Thor has a fit (because he **_**would**_**), "And if I was, I'd need to be able to see my stage and my microphone and my band and my audience, don't you think?"**_

_**Thor makes a face and shrugs, and it's the closest thing to agreement that Loki's going to get from him, because Thor never ever **_**ever**_** admits a wrong. He could have all the evidence in the world stacked against him and he'd remain steadfast and completely assured with his faultlessness.**_

"That's one of the reasons I can't stand Thor most of the time," Loki says, "Mostly because it's annoying as hell when I can't convince the idiot that he's wrong, but also because I can never be as sure of myself as he is."

"Makes sense," Tony acknowledges, and he brings his arm up to rest underneath his head.

Loki smiles a bit, but not out of happiness. You know _that_ smile, the one that's slightly involuntary and isn't supposed to mean much of anything besides _goodbye, the end, it's over, go home_? That's the one. He half-murmurs, "That's it, I guess. I mean, nothing interesting happened after that."

Tony just watches him for a few moments, silent and wistful, and it's almost scary/safe the way Loki feels vulnerable/secure under the man's gaze. Then Tony's wiggling closer to him, saying, "Tell me another story."

Loki hums, asks, "And if I end up going through my whole childhood?"

"That'd be great, actually," Tony laughs, and Loki really loves the man's eye-crinkling, cheek-dimpling smiles a whole fucking lot.

"What time is it?" Loki questions, raising his head off of his pillow and searching the room for a clock he knows isn't there.

"It doesn't matter," Tony sighs, draws Loki's eyes back to him, "Don't think about that."

"I have homework and a brother to take care of, Tony," Loki points out, and he moves to sit cross-legged on the mattress, "It's not terribly late right now," he nods to the window; the sky is still light, but it's taking on an orangey-pink tinge, "… but I can't stay here all night because we've lost track of time."

Tony makes this whiney, groaning noise and sits up as well, nosing into Loki's face a lot like a child would. He moans, "I really wish you would, though."

Loki smiles, a real smile this time, says, "I know. I want to, too, but things don't always work out that way, do they?"

And really, the part of him that's being deliberately ignorant of the fact that Tony will most likely find a way to get him in bed in the most non-literal, figurative, suggestive sense, even if it takes all night long, actually _does_ want to stay. But Loki vowed the very first day he set foot on campus that he wouldn't let himself be distracted from his education by anything _at all _so long as he was a student at EU.

Then again, he didn't know Tony Stark or how comfortable his bed is on his first day of college.

Tony pouts, much like he did at the door (dammit, Tony, stop being so cute), argues, "It's just _one_ day, Loki. Thor can't do _that_ much damage, and your psychology professor can't be as terrible as you say he is."

Loki's making these ridiculously skeptical faces as Tony spews that load of bullshit, and as soon as the man's done, he starts to prove his point with, "First of all, one day is also called twenty-four hours; keyword, _hours_. Got it?"

Tony nods.

"Those are hours of class time I can't afford to lose, Tony," Loki says, "I'm going to be a psychologist someday, but I'm not going to get there by being truant, just like _you_ won't earn a degree or your father's position by spending all day in bed with me." Tony's looking at him with this hangdog expression that's so intense Loki wants to _die_, so Loki adds, "And as much as I love you and would rather spend weeks upon weeks just in _your_ company," (he's not exaggerating), "I can't. That's life."

"Life sucks," Tony says rather ineloquently, and Loki feels an upward tug at the corners of his mouth.

"Secondly, Thor can do a world of damage," Loki goes on, and he feels almost silly saying this, simply because it's so obvious, "Have you heard about the accident? And would you like to see the mess inside my head? And don't you remember the case of the missing food?"

"I get it, I get it," Tony laughs, scratching at the back of his head.

"_Thirdly_, you have no idea what it's like in Professor Doom's classroom," Loki insists, and he can literally feel his body locking up at the mere thought of his psychology class, "Every time I walk in there, I actually have to physically force myself to calm down."

"It's _that_ horrible?" Tony asks, and while the question is obviously concerned, he voices it like he doubts Loki's claims.

"One time the man had us all write a secret about ourselves on a slip of paper and put it into a hat," Loki says, "Then he'd read each secret to the whole class and have us 'psychoanalyze' the supposed writer. The worst thing about it was that he knew who wrote what based on their handwriting."

Tony's frowning as he questions, "Well what did everyone say about you?"

"They said I was self-loathing and had a type A personality, which is totally accurate but a bitch to hear from your classmates," Loki replies, "And Professor Doom said I was a narcissist."

Tony's eyes widen, and his lip curls a bit as he says, "That's fucking horrible."

"And also true," Loki points out. The look Tony gives him is kind of hilarious in its absurdity.

"Explain please, because I'm not following your… _logic_," Tony requests, propping his elbow against his knee and resting his jaw in his hand in a way that's impossibly dejected.

"After I thought really hard about what Professor Doom said, I realized that you don't have to be an egotistical jackass to be considered a narcissist," Loki explains, "Because… because of the way I grew up and the way I always felt like I was neglected or passed over, I feel like I'm constantly denied affection that I supposedly deserve; so much that I care about my feelings and my happiness more so than that of other people. And isn't that what a narcissist is?"

The explanation seems pretty damn admirable when Loki's telling it to himself, to be honest. When he's relaying it to someone else, though, it just sounds like absolute self-defense and _oh my God I'm not really an asshole because I have awesome excuses_. Which is exactly what Loki's trying _not_ to say. Fuck.

But Tony gets this enlightened expression on his face and nods, slowly says, "Yeah…"

Because Loki just loves to hear himself talk (_ha_), he elaborates, "Narcissism doesn't have to be about self-love. It just has to be about self-centeredness, and I'm _very_ self-centered."

"I understand your point," Tony says, moves to poke Loki's stomach, "But that still doesn't mean I'm necessarily letting you out of this house tonight."

And of course Tony would do something crazy like that. Loki really doesn't put it past the man to prevent him from going home or tie him to the bed or something similarly outrageous.

But, instead of replying to his comment, Loki smiles and asks, "Shall I be telling you that story, now?"

Loki uses diversion. It's super effective!

"Unh-huh," Tony hums eagerly, moving to face Loki and cradling his head in his hands. Loki takes a moment to conjure a memory.

_**He's still nine years-old, but it's a whole season later, and he's exchanged some of his mopeyness for a whole lot of snark. It's the beginning of a wonderful and lengthy career in the field of smartassing.**_

_**At this particular moment, it's nine o'clock (bed time in momlish) on a Friday night, which basically means that he and Thor have taken it upon themselves to completely ignore the rules in favor of doing whatever the fuck they want.**_

"_**I want the fish blanket," Loki says as Thor bolts, rather noisily, **_**fuck**_**, into the closet. He watches his brother climb on top of the tubs of fabric stacked against the wall and grasp at the blankets on the shelf above their clothes. As something of an afterthought, Loki adds, "Be quiet."**_

"_**Shut up," Thor sneers, "Momma and Daddy are sleeping."**_

"_**Mother and Father don't **_**sleep**_** on Fridays, Thor," Loki says, ever the know-it-all, "They drink their funny drinks and have grown-up fun."**_

Tony's laughing. Loki is, too.

"_**How do you even know that? Do you do it with them?" Thor asks, and it's kind of funny how suspicious his question is. Like Loki would be so **_**traitorous**_**.**_

"You're hilarious, you know that?" Tony chuckles, grinning wide and amused.

Loki does an extremely theatrical and exaggerated hair-flip that absolutely _murders_ Tony, says, "That's me."

"_**No," Loki replies pointedly, "Don't be dumb."**_

"_**You didn't answer my first question," Thor huffs, dropping two comforters to the floor, "How do you know what they do?"**_

"_**Because I read Mother's magazines when she accidently leaves them in the bathroom, and I get hungry in the middle of the night," Loki sighs in a voice that's incredibly uninterested and disapproving of Thor's very existence.**_

"Did she read Cosmopolitan and Bust?" Tony asks, and Loki hums with amusement.

"_Yes_," he answers, "Have you read some of the things in those magazines? They're awful."

"No argument there," Tony laughs.

"_**Those are icky," Thor says, and Loki quickly assumes that he's referring to the magazines. He's going to gather his desired sea-print blanket from the floor when Thor just flings himself from his perch like a goddamn chimpanzee or George of the fucking Jungle, and Loki seriously considers beating his head against the wall when his brother lands, quite stupidly (and **_**noisily**_**) on his front.**_

"Do you know those children that think they're Batman or something, so they're always doing this dramatic running and jumping and posing everywhere they go?" Loki asks.

Tony smirks a bit sheepishly, says, "I was one of those children, Loki. Until I was eleven, I mean."

"_**Thor, stop it," Loki sort of **_**pleads**_**, "Are you hurt?"**_

_**And then Thor shoots up like he didn't just do a total faceplant, grabs his blanket and says, "Of course I am!"**_

"_**You've got to be quiet, stupid," Loki bitches (he's an expert at that) as he moves over to their bunk bed. Sometimes he has to remind himself that he begged for Mother and Father to have a shared room with his brother right along with Thor (admittedly, he was five years old and absolutely inseparable from the boy when he did).**_

"_**Quiet? I've never heard of such a word. What's it mean?" Thor jokes, and he does this weird, half-barrel roll, half-monkey swing into Loki's bunk right along with his brother. Thor was quite a rambunctious child.**_

"He still is, actually," Loki notes.

"_**This," Loki laughs, moving to clamp both hands down on Thor's mouth. Thor shrieks against his palms, tries to wrestle his arms away, but Loki's climbing on top of him and pinning him to the mattress, giggling as quietly as he can (which is pretty quiet, to be honest; Loki never was particularly loud).**_

"Uhm…" Tony starts to say, and Loki gives the man a quizzical look when he pauses and scratches his head, nervous. And then Loki realizes just _what_ Tony's thinking (goddamn pervert), and he almost wants to throttle the man.

"We were _nine_ and _ten_, Anthony Stark," Loki bites out in a hard, slow voice, reaching over to lightly bop Tony across the forehead, "Sex was the weird, noisy rolling around Mother and Father would do in their bed or what happened when Mother told us to shut our eyes and close our ears whenever we watched TV."

"I didn't say anything!" Tony says defensively, but he's grinning his shit-eating, suggestive, _oh ho ho I see what's going on here you can't fool me_ grin.

"You _thought_ it, you ass," Loki retorts, "That's depressing, that my best friend would think such thoughts about my brother and I. Don't you know how children play?"

Tony hesitates for a moment, then says, "You have to remember that I stopped being a kid when I was seven and didn't have a friend that wasn't over twenty years older than me until I was in high school."

Ouch. Way to make Loki feel like shit.

At first, Loki has no earthly idea what to say to that, because even though Tony's reconciled and dealt with his turbulent feelings about his childhood, or whatever you'd call that awful period of development, Loki _hasn't_, and he still worries and boo-hoos over Tony when it comes to that part of his life. That's a tender nerve to touch for him, even if it isn't his own.

"Tony…" is all Loki can manage initially. His mind is too full of thoughts of poor neglected, drug-addicted, alcoholic Tony for him to say much else.

"No, no," Tony deflects, shaking his head and waving his hands like he does when he really doesn't want to talk about _it_, whatever _it_ may be, "I shouldn't have said that. Ignore me. You know how shit just comes out of my mouth and I can't he–"

"I'll teach you," Loki cuts his friend off, moving closer, "I'll teach you how to play."

"I _know_ how to play," Tony sighs. His voice is resigned and quiet, and it's obvious that the man would rather be talking about _anything_ but_ this_ right now. While Loki knows exactly how that feels, he also knows that sometimes it's better to discuss something than to let it slide, even if it's like pulling teeth to do so. Remember how much good screaming at Thor did him?

"Just because you know doesn't mean you've done it," Loki argues, and when Tony starts to speak, he takes a page from his own book and covers the man's mouth with his hands, pins him to the mattress, and climbs on top of him. Tony raises a brow and mumbles something against his palms. Loki grins.

"What was that?" Loki laughs, moving his hands to frame Tony's face.

Tony smiles and says, "I'd do anything if it was with you."

Okay, Tony. Go ahead and turn Loki's entire being into cherry slushie. That's cool.

"I'm going to forget my pride and just say that I love you with the passion of a thousand soaring valkyries, Tony," Loki purrs, leaning back on his haunches and trailing a hand down the side of said man's face.

"I'll always love you more," Tony says very matter-of factly, arching his back with a small smirk. Oh God, _Tony_.

"Shush," Loki murmurs, leans down to kiss and nuzzle against Tony's jaw (because this restraint shit is for the birds, man). He hums quietly when Tony rubs his hands up his back, asks, "Where was I?"

"You were molesting Thor," Tony replies. Loki pinches his cheek with a smirk.

_**Loki's doing a pretty good job of holding his brother down until Thor swipes his tongue thickly and wetly across his palm. **_**Yuck**_**.**_

"_**Thor, that's gross!" Loki cries, a little more loudly than he intends to, hastily crawling off of his brother and scrubbing his hand against his bedsheets. And then he realizes that he'll have to sleep on that. **_**Eeewwwww**_**.**_

"_**Your face is gross," Thor says, moving onto his knees and grabbing his blanket. It's then when Loki remembers just what they were doing, and suddenly the unsanitary, contaminated, biohazardous state of his sheets is rendered totally unimportant.**_

"Thor and I used to take our comforters and make these 'hammocks' with them, see?" Loki explains, "Because the top bunk had these metal bars that would hold the mattress instead of a solid bottom, we could tie shit, like blankets, to them."

"And they'd support you? The hammocks, I mean." Tony asks a bit incredulously, palming the side of Loki's hip. Oh, that feels _good_.

"Until Thor was thirteen and I was twelve, yes," Loki replies, sliding his arms around Tony's neck and behind his head, "We'd make them without Mother's permission, because she was always fussing about how we were going to break the bed or that Thor was going to fall out of his and land on the floor or something. And we'd act like jungle rangers or monkeys until we were barely keeping our eyes open. A lot of times we fell asleep in them."

"At the risk of sounding like Beavis and Butthead or something, that's fucking awesome," Tony says with a smile. Loki returns the expression.

"You know the real hammock in our backyard?" Loki asks, and when Tony nods, he adds, "Mother got it for me after I told her how much I missed the ghetto ones Thor and I made."

Tony laughs at his word choice, questions, "Do you prefer the _ghetto_ hammock or the proper one?"

"The ghetto one," Loki hums, "Because that was something that, as far as I knew or know, only Thor and I did. That was our special thing, you know?"

He's not sentimental. I fucking swear he isn't.

"Yeah," is Tony's quiet, simple answer.

_**Loki climbs into his hammock noiselessly and without a glitch. His knots are perfectly tight, he's got just enough wiggle room, and there's the tangible, exhilarating illusion of weightlessness and emptiness beneath him. Wonderful.**_

_**Thor, however, has a bit more of a problem. Because he's a fatass (Not really, okay? I'll admit it: that was pretty rude. **_**Robust**_** would more accurately describe Thor's physique.) with the attention span and intelligence of a gnat, his knots come loose as soon as he's got his butt in his hammock. Uh-huh.**_

"_**Do you need some help?" Loki asks, sitting up and peering over the high lip of his blanket. Thor glares at him as if he'd suggested that they don pink and purple princess dresses and ride unicorns to Candyland. **_

"**No**_**," Thor says harshly, grabbing the untied end of his comforter and setting to work fastening the bitch to one of the metal bars above him. Well, damn.**_

_**And you know, it really does bother Loki a whole fucking lot when Thor acts like he's not worth anyone's aid, least of all his own, when Thor looks at him like he's the stupidest fucking creature to walk the earth, when Thor gets so, so **_**angry**_** so goddamn **_**fast**_**. If Loki's incapable of doing something as simple and true as helping his brother, what **_**can**_** he do? Really?**_

_**So Loki, stung, turns his back on Thor and curls further into his hammock. He honest to God doesn't care about playing around or staying up or breaking the rules or any of that fun stuff anymore. He'd rather go to sleep now, because Thor's so hard to play with after he's wounded him and **_**damn**_**, does he hurt right now.**_

_**Loki listens to the sounds behind him, hears the bed creak as Thor climbs into his hammock. There's no thump and the bed doesn't shake, so Thor was obviously successful in constructing his perch this time around. Not quite surprisingly, the knowledge neglects to warm Loki. **_

_**He feels so very cold.**_

"_**Loki?" Thor asks after a moment of silence and inaction, and his voice is without a trace of anger. It's also lacking in hesitation or concern. Typical.**_

"_**What?" Loki replies quietly, absently picking at his **_**Batman**_** t-shirt. He's staring hard at a seahorse printed on his blanket, figuring that if he focuses on something apart from his chaotic feelings, he won't end up doing something stupid and outspoken.**_

"Wait…" Tony cuts in, "Since when is being outspoken a bad thing?"

"When I was a child, it was," Loki says, "Being outspoken meant being disobedient and unlikable. I didn't realize that maybe it was better to be that way until I was thirteen or fourteen."

"_**Turn over, will ya?" Thor pipes, "We've got a jungle to rule."**_

"_**The jungle can rule itself, or you can do it on your own," Loki grumbles, and his back feels powerful and deflective, almost like a shield, as he arches it to his brother, "I don't make any difference."**_

"_**What?" Thor says incredulously, "Of course you make a difference, Loki. You know I can't do it without you."**_

"_**I'm sure you could if I was never here for you to do it with," Loki mumbles, and honestly, he kind of scares himself when things like this come flying out of his mouth without precedent or warning. I mean, he's sharp as a tack, don't get me wrong, but since when do **_**normal**_** nine year-olds say things so self-loathing and hurtful?**_

Tony gets this expression on his face that's absolutely horrible. Loki pauses to kiss the man's chin, laughing quietly when his goatee tickles his lips.

"That's sad, Loki," Tony sighs with a touch of gloom, but he's just barely smiling as he says this.

"So?" Loki retorts, and when Tony glares at him, questioning, he elaborates, "Lots of sad things happen, Tony. I don't see the point in dwelling on them if they're going to make you feel like shit. Plus, it was years and years ago. It doesn't matter anymore." (It does, though. Why would he have mentioned it if it didn't?)

"Yeah, but you were a kid," Tony argues, and both of them are well aware of the hypocrisy in their arguments; Tony's childhood was a great deal worse than Loki's in a whole lot of ways, and you can bet your ass he'd deny the importance of every single moment he felt alone or scared (which was almost every moment, to be honest), just as Loki's doing right now.

"I'm still a kid," Loki replies, and the statement is only half-true. He's very much a man as well.

"_**Why do you say stuff like that?" Thor asks in a slightly whiny tone, and Loki can hear the boy moving around in his hammock, "It's really… bad when you do that." (Of course **_**bad**_** is the best word Thor can come up with.)**_

_**Loki doesn't respond to Thor's question, because he knows his answer would only piss his brother off. He wants to say **_**Because you only listen to me when my words are negative**_**, **_**Because I know it hurts your feelings**_**, and **_**Maybe because I feel bad. Have you ever thought about that?**_**. But he doesn't. He's smarter than that.**_

"**Loki**_**," Thor says a bit loudly, obviously losing patience with his brother (and really, Loki can never win in these situations; no matter what he does, Thor ends up getting angry), just as the door opens. Loki doesn't move to see who it is; his position already makes it seem like he's asleep, which is probably for the best.**_

"_**What are you two doing in here?" Mother's voice comes asking, and suddenly, Loki's torn between maintaining his make-believe slumber and telling on Thor. He doesn't care if it makes him a tattle-tale.**_

"_**Loki's being mean to me," Thor says, and the lie makes Loki's decision that much easier to make.**_

_**Flying up like a meerkat on the savannah to glare, incensed, at his brother, Loki protests, "No, I'm not!"**_

"_**Yeah, you are!" Thor barks back, and oh **_**God**_**, he's **_**pissed**_** and Loki's scared and shitshit**_**shit**_**, what's he going to do now? He can't stand up to Thor when he's mad, he just **_**can't**_**.**_

"_**Quit lying!" Loki cries, his eyes just beginning to sting with tears.**_

"Lying's the only way I could defend myself or stay afloat when everyone else was always doing it," Loki notes, "Even when the truth suddenly became this oh-so important, oh-so wonderful thing, I kept on spinning stories."

"Well, that's what you were taught," Tony points out. And he's absolutely right.

"Unfortunately, yes," Loki hums.

"_**Stop it, you two!" Frigga calls over their banter, moving over to the bunk bed. She scowls disapprovingly at their inventions, asks, "Now what have I told you about the blankets?"**_

"**Momma**_**," Thor keens, turning away from Loki, "We're just having fun."**_

"_**This doesn't much sound like **_**fun**_** to me," Frigga says, placing her hands on her hips. She sweeps her eyes over the two boys, taking in Thor's tense pose and bright expression and Loki's darker, gloomier demeanor. With a sigh, she steps back and orders, "Out. Now."**_

_**Thor makes an exaggeratedly disappointed noise and climbs out of his hammock. Loki follows suit, albeit more quietly. The two brothers sit on the carpet beside the bed, leaving about a foot of space between them (you have to remember how very young they are).**_

_**Frigga sinks to her knees in front of her sons, fixing them with serious looks as she asks, "What's wrong, hm?"**_

_**And it's almost as if the woman's lit a match, because Thor and Loki are immediately yelling and pointing fingers, each trying to outdo the other. It doesn't take long for Frigga to interrupt them with a firm and loud, "One at a time!"**_

_**Thor and Loki quickly go silent, the former staring at the latter and the latter watching the floor.**_

"_**Who wants to go first?" Frigga ask, her voice a bit more gentle.**_

_**Loki remains tactfully wordless as Thor yaps, "Me!" He knows his brother was expecting him to speak as well, which is why he himself anticipated the boy's speedy reply and opted to say nothing. **_

"_**Yes, Thor?" Frigga prompts, folding her hands into her lap.**_

"_**Loki was saying bad stuff and being sar–" Thor cuts himself off, his face screwing up into a confused expression, "Sar… sar–"**_

"_**Sarcastic," Loki mumbles, growing a bit irritated with his brother's incompetence.**_

"_**That!" Thor cries, turning to glare at Loki for a moment. Loki glances further away.**_

"_**What kind of 'bad things' was Loki saying?" Frigga asks patiently, perfectly calm in the face of conflict.**_

_**Thor pauses for a moment, at a loss, before replying, "Well… he was talking like I don't care about him, and that's not fair." The **_**because I do**_** goes unspoken, but not unheard.**_

_**And Thor's words are tempering yet unsettling to Loki, because as far as he knows, Thor couldn't care less about him sometimes.**_

_**Frigga frowns a bit, looks at Loki and asks, "What about you, Loki? What do you have to say about that?"**_

_**Loki honestly has no idea anymore.**_

_**What ends up coming out of this mouth is, "Nothing, Mother."**_

"Why didn't you say anything?" Tony asks, voice high and skeptical. He sits up a bit, and Loki moves to brace his hands against the mattress beneath them.

"Because… because it wasn't worth it," Loki says, "In a way, I heard what I wanted to hear, which was that Thor cared about me. I was still upset, but I wasn't going to do or say something completely unnecessary because of that."

_**There is along moment of uncomfortable silence after Loki speaks, only broken when Frigga asks, "Why aren't you two in bed like you're supposed to be?"**_

"_**It's **_**Friday**_**, Momma," Thor says in a slightly belligerent tone, "And me and Loki really aren't that tired, and you and Daddy get to stay up late, and–"**_

"_**Alright, baby," Frigga laughs, gently interrupting Thor's tangent and smiling delicately, "I suppose you two could afford a few more hours of fun."**_

_**And that just sounds like the most wonderful/epic/awesome/glorious/[insert positive adjective] thing in the universe to both Thor and Loki, because an hour is like a whole fucking year to a child, and several of those is the equivalent of an era. Can you imagine the excitement?**_

"_**Thanks, Mom!" Thor exclaims, his face splitting into a wide, ecstatic grin as he launches himself at Frigga, arms spread. Frigga chuckles warmly and hugs Thor to her chest, lovingly kissing his temple and ruffling his hair. Loki resists the urge to frown.**_

_**Okay, okay. You're correct if you're assuming that he's just a tad jealous of Thor (and really, when is he **_**not**_** in some way?), because even though it's petty and nonsensical and quite honestly beyond Loki to envy the affection his brother deserves just as much as he does, he's **_**nine years-old**_** and has a crippling inferiority complex. That might sound like a horribly invalid excuse, but it is what it is.**_

_**Thor squirms out of Frigga's embrace and stumbles to his feet, bolting out of the bedroom and down the hall. Frigga calls over her shoulder, "Wait, Thor!", but the command is futile. Thor's not going to stop if Jesus Christ himself told him to.**_

_**Huffing quietly and with a trace of affection, Frigga turns back to Loki, who's currently fascinated with the hem of his shorts. She smiles a bit, says, "Loki?"**_

_**Loki doesn't look up, murmurs, "Yes, Mother?" He's always been exceptionally obedient and polite.**_

"_**Do you have something to tell me?" Frigga asks in a voice tender enough to soften alabaster, tilting her head in an inquisitive expression of openness. Loki reluctantly raises his eyes, but not his head, to regard his mother. He's completely taken by the look on her face.**_

"_**Thor thinks I'm stupid," Loki blurts, more willing to speak now that his brother is absent, "He never lets me help him and he's always making me look bad."**_

_**Frigga's smile drops as Loki speaks, and she reaches forward to rub her son's cheek, soothes, "I'm sure he doesn't mean to hurt you, darling. That's just the way your brother is."**_

_**Loki sniffs nearly soundlessly, letting a few tears escape and whining, "Then I don't like the way he is." Because you don't have to like someone to love them more than anything.**_

"_**Oh, sweetheart…" Frigga sighs, brushing away Loki's tears with the pad of her thumb, "Don't say things like that. It's not very nice to speak badly of Thor."**_

"**He**_** always does it to me," Loki points out, dodging his mother's hand to wipe his eyes himself.**_

"_**I know. And that is wrong of him," Frigga acknowledges, palming her thighs, "But if Thor jumped off of a bridge, would you do the same?"**_

_**Honestly? At this point in his life, he would, just so he wouldn't be without his brother. But Loki does understand Frigga's point.**_

"_**No," Loki replies, quiet and meek.**_

"_**No," Frigga echoes. She opens her arms with a small, welcoming smile, says, "Come here, Loki."**_

_**Loki wastes no time at all crawling into Frigga's lap and wrapping his thin, lanky arms around her neck. He clings to her, buries his face in her shoulder as she holds him close and rubs his back, cooing, "It's okay, love. It's all okay."**_

_**And Loki welcomes the calm, vacant feeling that overtakes him whenever he's in his mother's arms; it's the closest thing to peace he's capable of feeling with the exception of unconsciousness. He'll treasure it every time it comes his way.**_

"Can I borrow your mom? Like, seriously?" Tony asks, and Loki laughs quietly, shifts into a more comfortable position.

"She already thinks of you as her son, so I suppose you surely can," is Loki's amused response.

_**After a few moments of stillness, Frigga bounces Loki in her lap, encouraging, and says, "Come on, baby. Up we go."**_

_**Loki holds on tight to his mother's neck as she cradles him under his bottom and rises to her feet. Frigga balances Loki against her hip, briefly rocking him back and forth with a melodious, reassuring hum. Loki purposefully forgets to smile.**_

"_**You're getting so big, my love," Frigga notes, grinning exuberantly, "Look at how fast you grow. You'll be taller than me in no time." Even though the comment warms Loki's heart, he's aware of how truly ridiculous it is; everyone knows he'll always be smaller and shorter than the general population.**_

Tony lets out a raucous, insolent, _beautiful_ laugh that has Loki smiling from ear-to-ear. He says, "That's bullshit. You're a fucking tree, man."

Loki chuckles, "If you'd seen me back then, you wouldn't have thought I'd get much taller than five and a half feet."

_**When Loki refrains from smiling once more, Frigga nuzzles into his face and kisses at his cheeks, his nose, his ears, drawing a slightly unwilling laugh from the boy. She pipes, "There you are! I've missed you terribly."**_

"_**Mommy…" Loki half-whines, hugging around his mother's neck and snuggling into her as much as he possibly can, and **_**ohhh**_**, does he love her. More than almost anything in the world, he **_**adores**_** her.**_

"_**Come on, Loki," Frigga chirps, moving down the hall, "Let's go save your brother from the terrible beast, shall we?"**_

"Who's the terrible beast?" Tony asks, a small whine hooking at the end of the question when Loki crawls off of him and onto his back (What? He was getting stiff, _God_.).

Rolling his vertebrae to rid his spine of kinks, Loki says, evenly, "Guess."

"Your A-plus father?" Tony speculates, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He presses closer to Loki, ever eager for more contact.

"Correct," Loki sighs, smiling wry and bitter.

_**Frigga carries Loki down the dark hallway, humming quietly. She's always humming or singing in some way, and Loki absolutely loves that. When the two arrive in the living room, Thor is perched on the sofa, birdlike, beside his father, yapping loud and excited.**_

"_**I swear Momma said we could!" Thor exclaims (and really, he's way too fucking hyper for someone who's been up since seven o'clock this morning, gone to school, played his crazy little butt off with Loki and Balder all afternoon, and ate out with his family), and when he sees his mother and brother enter the room, he starts waving his finger around in their general direction, crowing, "Look!"**_

_**Odin turns to regard Frigga and Loki with a slightly amused and faintly exasperated expression, asks, "Is that so, Momma Bear?"**_

_**Frigga laughs quietly and does a mock-salute, replies, "It is, Poppa. I don't think it's that big of a deal for baby bears to lose a little sleep on a Friday night."**_

_**Odin's brow furrows just a bit, and he questions, "No?" in a voice that says **_**Explain your obscure reasoning because I know you have it**_** and **_**I respectfully disagree because I'd rather do other things**_**.**_

_**Frigga does this thing with her demeanor that must communicate something only adults can understand (because Loki honestly doesn't know **_**what**_** it means, even if he knows it means **_**something**_**), says, "They've been up all day. What's a few more hours?"**_

_**Odin's face changes and he gets this knowing look on his face. He says, "I see."**_

"_**So can we stay up?" Thor asks somewhat impatiently, bouncing up and down on his knees like a baby kangaroo.**_

"_**I suppose you can," Odin responds, smiling warmly, "And I'll be getting to bed. Isn't that funny?"**_

_**Thor grins and nods, laughs, "Yessir." And Loki knows that Thor only agrees because it's Odin he's agreeing with; not because he understands the irony of the situation. Oh, bother.**_

_**Odin leans over to kiss Thor's temple, gently ruffling his hair, hugging him close, and saying, "Goodnight, my son."**_

_**Thor grins as Odin stands and moves over to Frigga and Loki, quietly giggling, "Night, Daddy."**_

_**Loki watches placidly as Father kisses Mother on the lips, as they both murmur, "Goodnight," at the same time, and it's always perplexed and intrigued him how in-synch his parents can be sometimes.**_

_**And then Odin is patting his head and kissing his cheek, saying, "Goodnight, Loki."**_

_**Loki barely has time to reply, "Goodnight, Father," before Odin is turning away and walking down the hallway, towards the bedroom he shares with Frigga. It doesn't hurt him that much, yet, for he's too young to realize that his father's eyes see differently when they're looking at him.**_

"_**Now, what does baby bear want to do?" Frigga inquires, shifting Loki on her hip. Loki lays his head against his mother's shoulder, reaches down to pick at the short, velvety drawstrings at the neckline of her shirt.**_

"_**Can we watch a movie?" Thor asks, already jumping off of the sofa and running over to the shelf housing all of their videocassettes and DVDs.**_

"Remember when VCRs were the shit? And when you'd record everything on videocassettes instead of on your TiVo? And when you were awesome if you had over ten Disney movies on VHS?" Loki asks, and Tony chuckles softly.

"I do," he replies, "And remember how amazing it was when fucking DVDs came out?"

"_Yes!_" Loki says, folding his arms behind his head, "And remember the moment when you wanted to watch something like Sleeping Beauty, but then you looked at your VCR and realized it was so old and dusty and full of crap that you couldn't use it anymore?"

Tony is laughing quite heartily before Loki's even finished with his statement, nodding in agreement and answering, "Shit yeah!"

"_**Sure," Frigga says, moving over to the couch to sit on it. She easily relocates Loki to her lap, curling her arm around the boy's back and leaning her head against his. Loki lets out a contented sigh.**_

_**Thor makes this excited, giggling noise and slaps his hands to the video shelf, shoving his nose against the spines of the movies sitting there. Loki has no idea how his brother can read like that.**_

"_**What do you want to watch, sweetheart?" Frigga asks, smoothing down his raven hair.**_

"_**I don't care," Loki replies quietly, looks away from Thor to stare into his lap. He really **_**does**_** care, but he knows full well that Thor would most likely shoot down his suggestions like a seven nation army if he didn't agree with him, and Loki's too scared to risk that. Plus, he still feels a bit rubbed raw by Thor's earlier behavior; Loki is **_**not**_** one to forget.**_

"_**No?" Frigga inquires just as Thor rips something from the shelf and starts running around with it thrust high in the air. Loki shakes his head, silent.**_

"_**Loki, Loki, Loki!" Thor caws, leaping onto the sofa like a hyperactive chimpanzee (do you know how fucking crazy one of those would be?) and shoving a video in his brother's pouting, despondent face. He questions, "You wanna watch this?"**_

_**Well, then. This is odd. Thor almost **_**never **_**cares about Loki's opinion enough to ask him about it.**_

_**Loki pushes the video away enough for him to examine the cover (because he can't see shit with it all up in his face), and to his surprise, he actually approves of the movie (which is fucking **_**great**_**, considering that almost everything Thor chooses or does is something he isn't too fond of). Thor peeks over the top of the case in time to see Loki nod a bit, say, "Okay."**_

"_**All right!" Thor cries, jumping to the floor and crawling around the coffee table over to the TV, where a Hallmark movie is currently playing.**_

"_**Do you need help, Thor?" Frigga asks, watching her son fiddle with the remote control and change the channel to that blue screen everyone used to see whenever they watched a movie. Thor growls quietly, the little prick.**_

"**No**_**, Mom," he snaps, dropping the remote on the carpet and cramming his chosen videocassette into the VCR. The screen soon goes black, and Thor shoots off of the ground, grabs the bulky VCR remote, and bounds onto the sofa. He bounces up and down a few times, making himself comfortable.**_

"_**I'm gonna skip the commercials," Thor announces, aiming the remote at the VCR. Loki nearly has a fucking **_**conniption**_**.**_

"_**I **_**like **_**the commercials!" the boy whines, sitting up a bit. He honestly feels affronted and insulted by his brother's intentions; Thor should know how much he anticipates the trailers that precede movies.**_

"_**The commercials are stupid!" Thor argues, making a face at Loki, and **_**oh shit**_**, there goes Loki's nerve again, all because Thor has to be a fucking dumbass and get angry. **_**Great**_**.**_

"Can I just say something?" Tony asks, scratching his nose and glancing at Loki.

"Of course," Loki replies, and it's actually a relief to shut up after about ten minutes of nearly nonstop storytelling. You know how your mouth gets that gummy, loose feeling and is suddenly flooding with saliva when you talk talk _talk_ for a really long time? Yeah. It's not very pleasant.

"First, I'm _dying _for a cigarette," Tony starts, sits up and runs a hand through his hair. Loki smiles a bit.

"_Yes_, you are quite literally _dying_ for a cigarette," Loki quips, prompting Tony to roll his eyes and slap his side.

"Second, I, uhm… I don't want to be rude or anything, but your brother can go fuck himself, _hard_, with a crowbar," Tony says, completely deadpan, and Loki absolutely _cannot_ stop himself from bursting into laughter (both because of how Tony said what he did and the mental picture his words conjure). Oh my _God_, would you take a look at some of the shit that comes out of this man's mouth?

"I'm serious, though!" Tony goes on, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead, "That's fucking traumatizing!"

"I know, I know," Loki chuckles, sitting up right along with Tony, "And believe me, I'm not at all fond of his behavior either. But would I be who I am today if he wasn't such an asshole?"

Well. _That_ was awfully dramatic.

Tony screws up his face, sliding off of the bed to move towards his desk. He says, "I understand what you mean, I do. But–"

"But Thor's a dick and he ruined my life and _boo-hoo-hoo_," Loki cuts in, waving his arms and bowing his head in a purposefully theatrical display of _woe_, "I've done enough crying about that and I'd like to move on now, thank you very much."

And Loki honestly _didn't_ mean to say that; it just came out, kind of like spilling milk into a conveniently-placed bowl of cereal (if that actually happens to people). But, no. He's twenty fucking years-old and has better things to worry about, like school and Tony and various other minor situations. Whatever happens with Thor from now on is in the future; _not_ the past.

Tony glances up at Loki with this slightly snooty expression, snatching up a pack of cigarettes from his desk (Speaking of, do you know how many fucking cigarettes Tony smokes a day? Ten. I'm serious.) and snorting, "Well, damn."

Loki realizes he is an asshole. It sucks when that happens.

"I'm sorry," Loki laughs, shaking his head a bit, "I'm just really tired of being airheaded."

"No, no. I get it," Tony says, sticking a cigarette between his lips and digging around for his lighter, "I just thought a comment like that would be _welcome_ when we were speaking so openly about your childhood and Thor's douchebaggery, that's all."

Okay, Tony. Be an asshole with your intentional wordiness and nonchalance.

"Tony, fuck you," Loki says, grinning when his friend looks up to shoot him a slighted look.

"Won't you?" Tony asks, pausing to light his cigarette and grab an ashtray from his desk before returning to the bed. He sits on the edge of the mattress beside Loki, takes a long drag and adds, "That'd be wonderful."

"Not this time," Loki hums, scooting very respectfully away from Tony (it's nothing personal; he just cares a whole lot about his lungs).

Tony smirks, waves his cigarette around in the air and asks, "You wanna try and shotgun again? That was pretty fucking–"

"_Unhealthy_," Loki finishes, crossing his arms tersely, "May I continue my story?"

Tony _hmms_ in accord around his cigarette, leaning back against a pillow. Loki resists the urge to cough like a maniac for the sole purpose of being rude (he is capable of being _that_ immature, trust me) and quickly recalls where he left off.

"_**Calm down, the both of you!" Frigga interjects, her face setting into a hard, solemn expression that scares the fucking **_**shit**_** out of both Thor and Loki. Mothers are fierce, man.**_

"_**Now, Thor. It's my opinion that you've been a little unfair to your brother tonight," Frigga continues, frowning slightly.**_

"_**Momma!" Thor keens, "I didn't do **_**anything **_**to Loki!"**_

"_**Thor," Frigga persists in a voice that's downright **_**terrifying**_**, "You hurt Loki's feelings, and neither I nor he appreciates that."**_

_**And Loki sort of-kind of wants to scream now, because he doesn't **_**want**_** Thor to know that he's wounded him. That's the equivalent of showing all your cards in a game of poker, of committing a crime and leaving a trail of blood leading right to your door. It's weakness. Which is fitting, seeing that Loki's always so frail.**_

_**Thor pouts, cries, "But his feelings are always getting hurt! Why should it matter?"**_

_**Can I hear a great big **_**ouch**_**?**_

"You're not fucking serious," Tony says, and when Loki looks up at his friend, the man is wide-eyed and slack-jawed, his cigarette just _hanging_ between his index and middle fingers.

"What?" Loki asks, even though he's well aware of how truly shocking Thor's words are. He smoothes a hand through his hair, totally blasé.

"Did he actually say that about you?" Tony questions, and he taps his cigarette ashes into the ashtray balanced on his thigh without conviction, like he's barely aware of what he's doing. Loki shrugs a bit.

"Yeah. And damn did it hurt," he replies, "But he was a stupid child, just like everyone is at some point in their lives."

"I would have backhanded that _stupid child_," Tony grumbles, roughly shoving his cigarette back into his mouth.

"Really?" Loki challenges, "If one day you find yourself with a ten year-old child who says something like that, would you hit them?"

That cuts Tony's anger short pretty quickly. Scowling, the man says, "That's different."

And Loki knows he's made a dick move; that was a touchy thing to ask considering how Tony's grown up (I mean, it wasn't a violent childhood, but it might has well have been with the shit he went through). Hell, it's a little scary to think of what kind of parents they might make in the future when you remember their folks. Loki at least had Frigga; Tony had jack.

Smiling gently, Loki says, "I know what you meant, Tony. I'm grateful for that."

Tony hums in something like acknowledgment, idly puffing on his cigarette. Goddammit.

"Don't be upset," Loki half-murmurs, bringing his knees up to his chest, crossing his arms over them, and resting his chin atop his limbs.

Tony blows out a thin stream of smoke, retorts, "Come here and make me happy."

Loki blinks. Okay.

"Just a kiss?" Tony asks, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Loki suppresses a wave of agitation (You've been there, right? After getting in a position you're completely comfortable with, you have to _move_ for whatever reason.) and leans across the expanse of mattress separating him and his friend. Tony eagerly meets him halfway, giving Loki a mouthful of smoke and best friend, and honestly? It tastes really good. Carcinogenic, but good.

"What did I tell you about shotgunning?" Loki coughs, and instead of reclaiming his previous stance, he just lies down on his side. Damn, they're doing a lot of moving around tonight.

"That it's unhealthy," Tony replies simply, "And you know what's funny?"

"Enlighten me, love," Loki hums.

"I find that some of the best things in life aren't good for you," Tony says, stubbing his cigarette out with a smile.

"Tell that to your liver and your lungs," Loki chuckles, moving an arm behind his head. Tony snorts a laugh and relocates his ashtray to the nightstand beside him.

_**Loki bites his lip and squints his eyes against the tears he knows are begging to come forth, listens to the sounds coming from the TV. What do you know? The commercials have started.**_

"_**Thor, that's a horrible thing to say about your brother!" Frigga exclaims, straightening her posture and shifting Loki in her lap, "Of course you should care about Loki's feelings. He's a person, just like you."**_

_**Thor scowls, looking down and away from his mother and brother. He huffs a sharp breath through his nose, dragonlike and angry, and Loki knows that he's playing the denial game. Unsurprising. **_

"_**Apologize," Frigga orders, and Thor's head snaps up, indignant.**_

"_**Momma!" he protests, his face a mask of bitter resentment.**_

"_**Don't argue with me," Frigga bites, "Say sorry to Loki. You've hurt him."**_

_**At first, Thor just glares really hard at Frigga and Loki, as if that will make them disappear in a puff of smoke or something ridiculous like that. But after that doesn't work (and why would it?), he gives a deep sigh and says, "I'm sorry, Loki. You can watch the commercials."**_

_**And that's exactly what Loki is supposed to want, right? But you know what? **_**He doesn't fucking care.**_** Not anymore.**_

_**His feelings don't matter? That's okay. He can fucking deal with that. He can shut up and sit down. Cool.**_

"_**I don't care. You can skip them," Loki replies, turning his pale eyes up to the ceiling. There's an uncomfortable beat of silence after he speaks, like the whole world is trying to decide whether he's being sincere or not. And **_**of course**_**, nobody fucking knows how to take him **_**seriously**_**; God forbid that they do.**_

_**Frigga frowns, lilts, "Loki, you don't have to–"**_

"_**I don't care!" Loki roughly cuts her off, fixing her and Thor with a piercing, **_**pained**_** look that conveys a whole lot more than **_**Shut up and leave me alone**_** (as if he'd say something like that) ever would. When his mother and brother remain mute even **_**longer**_** (oh my God, you can fucking **_**speak**_**; Loki won't throw a fit or anything, not that you'd care), Loki adds, "Do what you want."**_

_**Then he does as best as he can to turn away from Frigga and Thor, moving so that his back is against his mother's stomach and his head is resting beneath his arms. Hm.**_

_**Again, Thor and Frigga are silent and still, but not for long. Soon Thor is fast forwarding through the commercials, Frigga is tightening her arms around her son, and Loki is shedding noiseless tears, hidden in the protective circle of his arms.**_

**Tarzan**_** begins without much incident. Loki drifts in and out of focus throughout the introduction, mainly because he's making a conscious effort to **_**not**_** let his tears be apparent. That would be… tragic. Or heartbreaking. And Thor and Frigga would make this huge fucking deal about it, and he'd suddenly be the center of all this negative attention, and no. Just, no. **_

_**Loki's not exactly sure when he decides to shut up and stop his godawful weeping, but it's somewhere between the lovely mother gorilla rescuing baby Tarzan and Tarzan growing up to be full-fledged ape-man, complete with dramatic running, leaping, swinging, and screaming.**_

"_**Momma, Momma, look!" Thor exclaims, and Loki can feel when the boy jostles Frigga's side. He's excited and oblivious once more, predictably.**_

_**And honestly? It really works on Loki's nerves and incites intense, saucy flares of jealousy inside him when Thor does this. That his brother is so crazily quick to anger and **_**still**_** manages to be such an optimistic and upbeat person is absolutely fucking **_**infuriating**_** to Loki. It's not fair.**_

_**Frigga makes an extremely motherly humming noise, says, "I see."**_

"_**I'm gonna be like him," Thor proclaims, his voice filled with awe and pride. **_

_**Loki could never make **_**his**_** voice do **_**that**_**.**_

"_**I sincerely hope not," Frigga laughs, smoothing a hand down Loki's concavely-curved side, "You're already rambunctious enough."**_

"_**What's that mean?" Thor asks. Loki sighs, quiet and vexed. Oh, the trials of a nine year-old with a sixth-grade reading level.**_

"_**What? **_**Rambunctious**_**?" Frigga questions.**_

_**Well, no duh. Would **_**you**_** expect a ten year-old like Thor to know what the word **_**rambunctious**_** means? I didn't think so.**_

"_**Yeah. It sounds funny," Thor replies. Loki can feel the sofa subtly bouncing beneath him, and he mentally curses his brother's habit of jumping whenever he gets excited. That's annoying.**_

"_**It means… active and energetic," Frigga thoughtfully clarifies. She moves a hand to play with Loki's dark, curly hair, and Loki resists the urge to jerk away from her touch.**_

"Your curls!" Tony interjects, grinning wide and laughing quietly. Loki makes a face at the man.

"What about them?" he asks, only half-paying attention to what he's doing when he tugs at the ends of his hair, tucked neatly behind his ear. The question is an incredibly stupid one to ask when Loki knows very well, almost _too_ well, what Tony's answer will be.

"What _about_ them?" Tony echoes, "They're fucking adorable."

"Oh, stop it," Loki immediately retorts, lightly batting Tony's thigh, "They're childish."

"I will douse you with water every time I see you just to bring them out, I swear," Tony chuckles, catching Loki's hand in his own when he tries to pull it away. He brings the man's fingers to his lips, just a hint of a smirk adorning his lips.

"You wouldn't," Loki retorts, fixes Tony with a hard mock-glare.

Tony laughs again, asks, "And why wouldn't I?"

"Because I promise you, you'd never touch me again if you did," Loki challenges, and he quirks a brow for emphasis. That pretty much does it.

Tony smiles one of his somewhat forced, over-exaggerated smiles, says very curtly and uncomfortably, "You're right. I wouldn't."

"That's what I thought," Loki hums with a small, devious smirk, gently pulling his hand from Tony. Tony frowns a bit.

_**Thor is silent for a few moments, like he's trying to process the meaning of his mother's words (not that they would be difficult to understand, mind you). When he does speak, he asks, "Is that a good thing?"**_

_**Oh my **_**God.**

_**Frigga chuckles (because everything Thor says is so funny and amusing, hahahaha, let's just laugh forever, shall we?), replies, "Depending on the context, yes."**_

_**And at this point, Thor just gives the fuck up trying to understand what things like **_**context**_** and **_**depending**_** mean. He simply redirects his focus back to **_**Tarzan**_**, which is much easier and more pleasant to watch and listen to than his mother and the words coming out of her mouth.**_

"So, uhm… I'm going to skip ahead a little," Loki semi-announces in a terribly diplomatic tone, "Because what's basically happening through most of the movie is Thor jumping around and saying random shit that I don't care about while I mope and roll my eyes a whole lot."

As Loki nears the end of his sentence, he looks over at Tony to find the man eyeing him very peculiarly. Uhm, okay?

"What?" Loki asks, only slightly confrontational.

"You swear a lot," Tony notes, his voice wondrous and his pace slow.

Loki smiles in a nonchalant-yet-sheepish-yet-confused way, retorts, "So? You curse a lot more than I do."

"Yeah, but I've always done that. You've only been cursing like _this_ for about a month," Tony points out, turning onto his side and looming over Loki just a bit obtrusively. Personal space is absolutely meaningless to them, can't you tell?

"Well, Thor moved in a month ago," Loki sighs in response, and he's only just now realizing how much his life has changed in said month as he talks, "I think the '_brospeak_' he and his friends use has permeated me or something."

"There's also your explosive rage and sudden volatility now that he's so much in your life," Tony inputs, walking his fingers across the mattress between them and reclaiming Loki's hand. His tone is droll and indifferent, contradictory to the words he's saying, and the inflection almost tricks Loki.

It's really hard to trick a trickster, though.

"What?" Loki questions again, a bit more fiery this time, and he narrows his eyes at Tony, almost challenging.

"Hm?" Tony hums, squeezing Loki's fingers as he meets the man's eyes. He appears to be innocent, but that could mean jack considering who he is.

"Are you implying that I'm a jackass?" Loki asks, frowning slightly.

Tony blinks, makes a _What the hell no no no_ face at him and replies, "Of course not! I'm just saying that maybe Thor, being hotheaded and all that, rubbed off on you. Or that he makes you really pissy a whole lot of the time. Which is true, am I right?"

He is. Loki nods, silent.

"It's not a bad thing," Tony goes on, and he's using his _I'm grasping for words because I'm a fucking idiot and I already talk too much_ voice, "I mean, it _is_ because you're in a bad mood, but that doesn't make you a less pleasant person to me. Uhm."

"I get it," Loki breathes, smiling at Tony's painfully apparent anxiety. Seeing the man so unusually ineloquent is refreshing and just a tad hilarious.

Tony grins as well, says, "I hope you do. Because I'm not _at all_ saying that you're not a good person. You're pretty fucking great, if I do say so myself."

"Well, thank you," Loki laughs, even if he doesn't agree at all.

"You're more than welcome," Tony replies, inching a bit closer. Oh, Tony.

Loki opens his mouth to speak, then realizes that he really doesn't know what the fuck he's planning to say. Awkwardly, he seals his lips again, vainly trying to regain his train of thought. What was he rambling on about?

Tony chuckles lowly, easily distracting Loki (damn it, Tony, do you always have to do that, _Tony_, that's fucking annoying, _**Tony**_). He asks, "A little lost?"

"Yes, no thanks to you," Loki scolds without heat, shaking his head as if to clear it of dust and cobwebs (if only that kind of shit worked), "You're too easy to talk to."

"Is that good or bad?" Tony asks, and _fuck_, he's only getting Loki farther and farther away from his desired destination; aka: wherever the hell he was in his story.

"Both," Loki replies mindlessly, tightly gripping Tony's hand and closing his eyes in thought. If his friend could shut up and I don't know, _walk across the room_ for a second or two, maybe he'd actually be able to think.

Tony makes this noncommittal noise and shrugs, says, "If it helps, you were telling me that you were going to do the time warp because Thor says things no one cares about."

Loki doesn't know whether he should start bitching or thank Tony. He does neither.

_**By the time the end of the movie rolls around, Loki is more than ready to just crawl in bed and fall asleep. While he isn't on the verge of breaking down and sobbing, he **_**is**_** still upset (it's always been in Loki's nature to hold grudges), and any more time around Thor's oppressively hyperactive, bossy self will probably drive him just a little insane.**_

"_**Okay, my bugs," Frigga says as the credits begin to roll, "I believe it's time for you to get to bed." Her voice is audibly tired, and when Loki peers over his shoulder at her, he can glimpse the nearly invisible dark circles ringing his mother's eyes.**_

"**Mooommm**_**," Thor whines (oh my God, shut the fuck up) in response.**_

"_**No, no, no, no," Frigga protests, sitting up straight, "You've been up much too long."**_

_**Loki doesn't disagree. Without a word, he carefully slides off of Frigga's lap and onto the floor, yawning quietly. **_

"_**But we're not even sleepy, Momma!" Thor argues, and Loki resists the urge to cave his brother's face in. **_**Of course**_** Thor would assume he automatically agreed with him.**_

_**Instead of using violence, Loki notes, meekly, "I'm very tired, Mother."**_

"_**You're no fun, Loki!" Thor loudly interjects, and his words are like bullets and poison and everything horrible in the world to hear. Thankfully, Mother Frigga is there to be a badass and a superhero.**_

"_**Thor, I've had enough of you being rude to your brother!" Frigga scolds, suddenly and alarmingly **_**pissed**_**. Remember how calm and composed she was being before? That Frigga is fucking **_**gone**_**. It's business time, now, and you know how I can tell? Thor isn't talking back. **_

"_**You need to learn to stop being so mean to Loki," Frigga goes on, rising from her seat and turning into a **_**goddess **_**to her children, "He has feelings, and you hurt him when you say such unkind things! Don't you know better?"**_

_**Thor just stares, wide-eyed, at his mother, fisting his hands in the front of his shirt.**_

"_**Answer me!" Frigga demands, and oh **_**fuck**_**, shit just got real.**_

"_**Yes, ma'am," Thor blurts, blinking hard with fear. His bottom lip is quivering just slightly, and Loki can see the absolute terror on his brother's face from where he sits on the carpet. The sight doesn't please him at all.**_

_**Frigga releases a deep, exasperated sigh, braces her fingers against her forehead and cries, "Loki is your **_**brother**_**, and you should respect him. He respects **_**you**_**."**_

"At the time, I didn't really know the difference between _respect_ and _love_," Loki says, "That's what made Thor being so ugly so horrible and upsetting to me."

_**Thor nods solemnly, repeating himself with, "Yes, ma'am."**_

_**Frigga is speechless for awhile, just watching Thor, and Loki can only imagine the massive amount of stress his brother is under right now. Then Frigga's saying, "Get to bed, both of you. And take those blankets down."**_

_**There's no hesitation when Thor jumps off of the sofa and runs down the hall and into the bedroom he shares with Loki. Loki barely has time to move out of the way to avoid being trampled by his brother, but he isn't much angered by Thor's hastiness. In fact, he empathizes with him.**_

_**As noiselessly as he can, Loki gets to his feet and begins to start down the hallway, unwilling to disturb his mother. He almost jumps out of his skin when Frigga murmurs, "Wait, Loki."**_

_**Loki slowly turns to face Frigga, a small, fleeting jolt of anxiety running through him as he does (which is silly, because rarely is he ever scared of his mother). Frigga is moving to kneel in front of him, smiling gently to calm his nerves (or her own, probably both).**_

"_**I'm sorry about what happened tonight, baby," Frigga croons, and she raises a hand to run through his hair.**_

_**Loki leans into his mother's touch, softly replies, "It's okay."**_

_**Frigga's smile softens into a half-frown, her eyes dropping a bit. She sighs, "Thor shouldn't be so mean to you. That's not very fair, is it?"**_

_**Loki shakes his head, mute.**_

_**After a beat of silence, Frigga returns her gaze to Loki and says, "Don't let him bother you, okay? You're nothing less than wonderful."**_

_**Loki hints a smile even if he doesn't really agree with his mother's words, shyly lowers his head. Frigga laughs in response, always amused by her son's bashfulness, and she leans forward to press a tender, loving kiss to his forehead.**_

"_**Now, off to bed with you," Frigga hums as she pulls away to stand up. She gives his curls one final ruffle and adds, "Dream sweet."**_

_**Loki pauses. You know that fuzzy-warm, electric feeling you get when your mother kisses you goodnight, how it makes your heart stand still for what feels like hours? That's pretty much what's going on right now.**_

_**Frigga tilts her head at Loki's hesitation, asks, "What's wrong?"**_

_**Loki doesn't answer verbally, just hugs his mother tight around the waist. It only takes Frigga a microsecond to return the embrace, humming happily and affectionately rubbing her son's back.**_

_**And then Loki is running down the hallway, unusually jumpy as a result of his happiness, and calling, "Goodnight, Mother."**_

"_**Goodnight, Loki," Frigga replies as Loki slips into his bedroom, identical smiles on both of their faces.**_

"And that's it, right?" Tony asks, "The end?"

Loki flattens his hands against the top of his head, laces his fingers together and says, "Not quite."

_**Thor is a dark lump of pissy little boy in the top bunk. Loki stares at his brother for a moment, and he can just **_**feel**_** the negative vibes radiating off of the boy. Surprisingly, that hurts him. More than Thor being a complete jackass, it **_**hurts**_** him.**_

"There," Tony says very suddenly, emphasizing his statement by pointing at the air.

"There, what?" Loki questions. He can sense a dropped disagreement being picked up again, just because Tony does things like that as well as he breathes (and you know, that was kind of an ironic simile when you take Tony's smoking habit into consideration).

"You go on and on about how _selfish_ you are, when really, you can't even _imagine_ being okay with someone you care about getting hurt," Tony proclaims, "Even if they're total assholes."

Loki _really_ wants to protest Tony's claims, but that something that always gives him coincidentally helpful advice tells him not to. Instead, he asks, "What makes you think I'm still like that?"

Tony hesitates, props himself up on his elbow. After a second of thought, he replies, "Well, you love _me_, for one."

Loki laughs as Tony goes on, "And, as stupid and as douchey as he is, you wouldn't _dream_ of leaving Thor, would you? Would you?"

"No, I don't suppose I would," Loki says, and there isn't a trace of reluctance in his tone. _That's_ an improvement.

"And even though you say you hate him _so_ much, you care about Steve, right?" Tony challenges, and this time, he _is_ pushing it a little too far for Loki's comfort.

"Wait, why would you–?" Loki starts to ask, but Tony's being his typically inconsiderate old self and cutting him off.

"And even though they piss you off and fuck up your house, you actually _do _give a damn about Thor's friends, right?" Tony rambles on, "And even if he was a horrible dad, your father's still your father, right? And even though she's just an annoying freshman who loves you _way_ too much for having just met you, you like that Kitty girl, right?"

"Tony, _shut up_," Loki practically _yells_ over his friend, sealing his hand over Tony's mouth. He's positive that if he doesn't stop him now, the man's ranting will never end.

Tony's eyes widen in surprise, and he blinks a few times, furrows his brow as if to say _Okay, bitch_.

Loki looks hard at Tony for a long moment, keeping his palm firmly planted against the man's mouth. He whispers, playful, "Can I tell you a secret?"

Tony nods, his face brightening, and Loki delicately pulls his hand away to reveal the man's highly-amused smirk. He murmurs, "I promise I won't tell."

Okay, stop making that face. They're very odd people, remember?

"Not a soul?" Loki asks with a grin, and he honest to God holds up his pinkie. Yeah, he went _there_.

Tony hooks his little finger with Loki's, echoes, "Not a soul."

Loki leans up to speak right in Tony's ear despite the fact that they're completely alone, says, "You're absolutely right about everything."

"_Yes_," Tony triumphantly hisses, turning to meet Loki's eyes.

"Except…" Loki quickly adjoins, trailing off and smiling when Tony makes a face at him, "My father. He's nothing more than a man to me."

Tony scowls a bit, says, "That's kind of harsh, don't you think?"

"That it may be, but it's the truth," Loki replies, "He's different from Thor, because I've always loved and respected my brother. Father was just someone I was scared of and happened to live with."

Tony nods a bit, humming, "I see."

There's a slightly awkward but mostly comfortable silence then, which Loki breaks with, "May I continue?"

"Go wild," Tony laughs in response.

_**Chancing absolute heartbreak, Loki asks, "Thor?"**_

"_**What?" Thor calls back, and his tone is harsh and cold. Ouch.**_

_**At first, Loki's resolve is completely smashed to bits. He immediately decides that there's no way in the **_**world**_** that he's going to talk to his brother when he's so angry and brusque. Absolutely not.**_

_**But then, he reminds himself what it feels like to be alone and wounded, to want someone to lift you up when you're down. He reminds himself that even if Thor would never admit to craving comfort, he's still very vulnerable, still very human. He reminds himself that it's just as much his job as it is Thor's to look after his brother.**_

"_**Are you alright?" Loki asks, enlightened. He pads across the room to their bed, peers up at Thor in the top bunk.**_

"_**Leave me alone. This is all your fault," Thor growls, and something about the accusatory way in which he speaks **_**really**_** pisses Loki off. **_

"_**No," Loki snaps with an uncharacteristic boldness, "I'm not going to leave you alone, and it's not my fault."**_

_**Thor's head whips over the side of the bunk, expression cross and eyes glaring, and he retorts, "If you hadn't gotten so hurt, none of this would have ever happened!"**_

_**They're speaking kind of loudly for kids who are supposed to be sleeping, don't you think?**_

_**Loki hesitates, taken aback by Thor's aggression (damn it). He closes his eyes and purses his lips, breathes slow to regain some daring, then says, "Thor, sometimes I get really upset and I can't help it. It's not my fault. It's **_**not**_** my fault, and I wish you would realize that, okay?"**_

_**Thor doesn't reply. He just stares at Loki, glowering a bit.**_

"_**I just wanted to make you feel better, that's all," Loki goes on, smiling sadly, "Sorry if that's such a bother to you."**_

_**And then he crawls into his bunk and starts to take the mock-hammocks there down.**_

"Look at you," Tony says, fondness evident in his voice, "Nine years-old and you already understand reverse psychology. You're gonna be a fucking beast shrink."

_**Loki's barely got one knot undone before Thor is climbing, quite noisily, down from his bunk. The boy stands beside his ladder for a moment, watching his brother with conflicted eyes before he says, "Don't do that."**_

_**Obediently, Loki lowers his hands from the knot he's working on, evenly holding Thor's gaze.**_

"_**Scoot over," Thor orders, gesturing with his hands and arms, "Get in your hammock."**_

_**Loki only pauses for about a half-second before he's doing what Thor says and climbing into his aquatic hammock; fuck what Mother will say tomorrow morning. Thor does the same, and thankfully, his hammock doesn't fail him this time.**_

_**Then there's a stretch of silence, in which Thor and Loki just kind of stare at each other and wait for someone to speak.**_

"_**I'm still tired," Loki ends up saying. It's only when the words are out of his mouth that he realizes how stupid and potentially infuriating they are.**_

_**But Thor doesn't go off on him. No, no. Instead, he replies, "Well, goodnight."**_

_**Translation: **_**Sorry, I still love you, no hard feelings**_**.**_

"_**Goodnight, Thor," Loki sighs, taking a moment to smile before turning over and curling up in his hammock. He only falls asleep after he's heard Thor make himself comfortable and slip into the tell-tale labored breathing of unconsciousness.**_

"_The end_," Loki says pointedly. Tony makes a satisfied noise, then goes quiet.

After a few long beats of calmness, Tony raises his hand like a ten year-old in math class. Loki huffs, "Yes, Mr. Stark?"

"Another one?" Tony asks, and when Loki's hand flies up to slap against his side, he laughs, "You're a good storyteller and you've got a lot to tell. That's more than I could say about a lot of people."

"What time is it?" Loki retorts, repeating his earlier question and sitting up to crawl out of bed. Tony stops him with two arms wrapped firmly around his middle and a chin digging into his shoulder.

"I'm not letting you out of this bed until you tell me _one_ more story," Tony says in a grave-yet-pleading voice (how the fuck did he do that?), "I swear it on my father's life."

"That's promising," Loki snorts, taking an obvious jab at Tony's not-so-friendly feelings towards his old man. Tony gives a low, throaty chuckle, and Loki nearly shivers at the sound rumbled directly in his ear.

"_Please?_" Tony begs, "I'll love you forever?"

"You'd do that anyway," Loki notes, relaxing in Tony's embrace in something like surrender. It's not fair to be best friends with someone so persuasive/attractive/adorable/hilarious/[insert positive adjective], especially when their bed belonged to _God_ once upon a time.

"Is that a yes?" Tony asks, moving a hand to idly draw patterns across Loki's chest with his index finger. Loki sighs.

"How about the time my cousins put me on trial?" he asks, turning his head to look at Tony.

Tony's face splits into a wide, excited grin. Loki can't help but mirror it.

"So," Loki prefaces, crossing his legs and taking Tony's hands in his own, "There really isn't a good way to introduce this story. It's not exactly a fairy tale."

"I'm sure you can manage," Tony smoothly replies, being typically unhelpful and blasé, "You know I've been wanting to hear about this ever since you mentioned it, like, _forever_ ago."

"I know," Loki sighs, and he can feel reluctance creeping up his spine and curling into his mouth like a dragon of bittersweet aftertaste as the memory of the mock-trial settles in his mind. Isn't it funny how one thing can incite millions of different reactions and emotions depending on who's experienced them? Because, look:

If you asked Loki how he felt about this particular incident, you'd end up with a plethora of negative adjectives cramming your ears and a ranting, pissy, _upset_ twenty year-old. Thor, however, would most likely burst into hearty laughter and proceed to tell you all about the ordeal without an ounce of hesitation. Different still, Frigga would take on a sentimental air and recount the event with thoughtful eyes and a slightly heavy heart. Odin would simply make a face and ask, "What are you talking about?"

My point is: everybody perceives '_the trial_' differently, and that's why it's probably for the best that Tony's got the single one person who _despises_ the event to tell him about it. Yep. Anyways.

Loki only realizes that he's been embarrassingly mute for God knows how long when Tony prods a gentle finger against his side and nuzzles his neck (_damn_), whispers, "You okay?"

Yeah, Loki. It really freaks people out when you go all silent and still like that, mostly because it's kind of creepy and a pretty solid indicator that something's breaking inside you (your heart, for example).

Instead of giving Tony a direct answer (since when are _those_ fun?), Loki asks, soft and slightly unwilling, "Have I ever told you about my cousins?"

_The_ cousins. And by _the_ cousins, I mean the ones Loki's been with since diapers, the ones he's played with just as long as he's played with Thor, the ones he shared homes and clothing and secrets and lies with, the ones that grew up a whole lot later than _he_ did, the ones that fucked the hell off as soon as the accident happened, the ones that are clinging to the threads of an old and dying relationship that suffers from the effects of age and distance and a heart broken one too many times, the ones Loki can't claim to remember too fondly even if a part of him desperately wants to. _Those_ cousins.

Tony makes a brief, hushed noise of consideration before mumbling into Loki's skin, "You've mentioned them a few times, but you haven't actually _talked_ about them in depth, y'know?"

Loki hums in acknowledgement and leans forward, forcing Tony to accommodate his new position (would you take a look at this _asshole_?). He says, eyes downcast and stormy, "Balder was six months older than Thor, and Freyr and Freya were born six months before me."

Tony seems to realize that _oh, Loki's actually going to talk now_, and his voice is upbeat and curious as he inquires, "They're twins?"

Assuming that Tony's talking about Freyr and Freya, Loki nods and elaborates, "Freyr was always talking about how he was older than Freya because he was born eight minutes before her, and Freya was always _baby girl_ or _little sister_ to him."

"What are they like?" Tony asks, "All your cousins, I mean." He rubs his nose along Loki's shoulder, drags the man's collar down to drop soft kisses there, and _goddammit_, do you know how fucking distracting and _wonderful_ that is?

"Uhm…" Loki breathes a bit bewilderedly, closing his eyes in a feeble attempt to regain his focus (even though doing so actually makes every sense in his body but sight direct itself at Tony and his hands and his mouth and his _breath_, and the way he breathes and the way he smells and the way he feels and _aaaggghhh_). Squeezing Tony's hand as if to say _Lay off on the foreplay, will you?_, he says, "Balder was Thor's best friend, besides me. He was… very quiet and very reserved. He never really liked to make a fuss about much of anything. And he was always doing something physical, just like Thor."

"Was he a follower?" Tony asks with a hint of smugness, "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you with all these questions…"

"It's fine," Loki asserts before Tony can go off on one of his rambling tangents (you _know_ he'd be one to do that), "Uhm… _yeah_, kind of. Before the accident, all he'd do was follow Thor around. If Thor wanted to go out for football, Balder did, too. Hell, if Thor was dead-set on riding a rainbow to _Narnia_, Balder would be raring to go right along with him," he pauses, face puckering a bit, then adds, "Actually, when I really think about it, it always seemed like Balder was only with us _because_ of Thor. That might just be my pessimism talking, though."

"But you were friends with him, right?" Tony questions, and Loki can feel the man shift a bit awkwardly against his back.

"Of course I was," is Loki's quick, curt answer. He turns to look Tony in the eyes and asks, abrupt and concerned, "What's wrong? Are you uncomfortable?"

Tony smirks a bit and lifts his chin off of Loki's shoulder, shaking his head and saying, "No, not really. But can I, uhm… make a slight adjustment to this arrangement?"

"Sure," Loki hums, and then he's being tugged completely into Tony's lap and against the man's chest, his head falling back onto a firm shoulder and every drop of tension in his body being drained. Tony gently kisses his temple, and it's all Loki can do to not just _melt_. Jesus _Christ_.

"You can continue," Tony pipes after Loki doesn't say anything for a few moments. Loki simply purrs and leans into his friend in response.

"No, this is cool," Loki laughs, tucking his face into the curve of Tony's neck, "I like this."

Tony makes this noise that's simultaneously pleased and huffy (isn't it weird how easily Tony can contradict himself in a single incident?), tightening his arms around Loki's middle in the most _awesome_ way possible and saying, "Would you be willing to do it every day?"

Loki really wants to just say _yes_ without thinking, because fucking _hell_, does he want to be held like _this_,by _Tony_, _every__** day**_ (and I swear to God that he _doesn't_ have a pair of ovaries; these are years of neglect and a lack of meaningful relationships talking, here; not an overload of estrogen). That would be the best, most truthful response to Tony's question if he was answering it literally, right? But here's the thing: Tony isn't _asking_ it literally.

So, instead of fucking himself over, Loki sighs and replies, "I'm going to let you answer that yourself, okay?"

There's a beat of uncomfortable silence before Tony concedes, "Yeah, that's probably for the best."

Phew. Crisis averted (for now).

Taking Tony's election not to speak as permission to go on, Loki shifts his position and starts, "Then there was Freyr."

Tony _hmms_.

"Freyr was… gosh, how do I even start?" Loki wonders, taking a deep, stuttering breath and screwing his face up in thought. Eventually, he manages, "He was a lot like me, actually, but lightyears different at the same time. It's kind of hard to describe him."

"Why?" Tony asks. The question is dumb and unnecessary, but Loki can see the intention behind it; Tony just wants him to _keep talking_ (he's obviously not worming his way out of _this_ situation).

"Well, he _lies_," Loki blurts out, feeling exceptionally _stupid_ as he does (I mean, come _on_; how eloquent was _that_?), "So it's not like there's anything that's real or genuine about him, if that makes any sense."

"Are you saying that the same can't be said for you?" Tony jests. Loki drives an elbow into his stomach, draws a sharp, rough laugh from the man's throat.

"_Yes_, that's what I'm saying!" Loki replies somewhat matter-of-factly (wow, what a _douche_), and Tony's laughter intensifies at his response, "_I_ lie and cheat for a reason, and a _good_ one, too. Freyr only cares about getting laid or getting money, and _he_ doesn't have an asshole of a sibling or the shittiest parent known to man. _He _doesn't have bipolar disorder. He's just fucking _greedy_."

And honestly, Loki's kind of being a huge (I mean, hee-_uge_) hypocrite here. He really is, not to mention that it's totally abnormal for him to make up such elaborate excuses for himself (especially when it's so much easier for him to just wallow in a sea of self-loathing and misplaced guilt). But, when you get to the very bottom of his feelings, Loki considers himself _wronged_ by Freyr and offended by his ways. What right does _he_ have to act like such a jackass, to think so highly of himself and so lowly of others?

No right at all.

Loki huffs quietly, continues, "Freyr would always spin these ridiculous, unbelievable stories that would just blow all of our minds. He loved to be noticed, loved being the center of attention, and he was sneaky as all get out."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Tony points out evenly, deftly walking his fingers up Loki's sides. His breath is warm and steady as it tickles against Loki's ears.

"I do? I'm sorry," Loki deadpans (because he really _doesn't_ give a single fuck about how he's making this sound), ignoring the odd snort-laugh Tony emits in response.

"I'm not sticking up for this guy or anything, but maybe it's just in his nature to be a little shady?" Tony half-chuckles, half-suggests in a _stepping on thin ice_ sort of tone.

"I'm sure it is," Loki retorts, trying not to sound too vexed (and failing, to tell you the truth), "That doesn't make him any less aggravating or upsetting, does it?"

Tony makes a slightly comical sturgeon-face, rejoins, "Touché."

Moving to card his fingers through his hair, Loki picks up where he left off with, "And then there was Freya, and she and Freyr were only similar on the surface. They were both clever and quick, but Freyr was all want and desire while Freya relied on her logic and what she knew. He was this free-spirited, sensual thing of a person. She was witty and hard-hitting. Does that make sense?"

Tony pauses, blusters an uneasy, "I guess?"

O_kay_. Let's go slow, shall we?

Barely reining in a sigh (Holy shit, why the fuck is he so irritated? Oh yeah, his cousins.), Loki tries, "Let's see, uhm… yin and yang. You know that, right?"

"Mm-hmm," Tony hums, relocates his hands to Loki's arms, which he grasps lightly. He's just having a fucking _ball_, can't you tell? (And seriously, why _wouldn't_ he be?)

"And how yin is dark and intense and yang is bright and positive?" Loki elaborates, and when Tony nods, he says, "That's what Freyr and Freya were like. So different, yet so alike."

"Oh, how dramatic, how poetic," Tony lilts in an _extremely_ sarcastic and mocking manner, and Loki can't help but laugh at his friend's tone.

"_Yes_, very," Loki purrs, spreading his arms to stretch and humming with pleasure at the shivery sensation of Tony dragging his fingertips along their undersides. _Ooohh_, that's nice.

"So, do you still talk with your cousins?" Tony asks, humor evident in his voice. He rests his head against Loki's, affectionate and casual, and _damn_ is it hard for Loki to not be moved/amused/flustered/delighted by Tony's ever-gentle, ever-seeking touches, by the soft, warm pressure of the man's fingertips and the oh-so obvious _love_ beneath them. Jeeze, was that sappy or what?

"Not really, to be honest," Loki awkwardly admits. His answer fails, terribly, to make him feel as bad as he should.

Tony bends his arms and clutches at Loki's shoulders like a human backpack of sorts, imploring, "Why not?"

Loki scowls, his eyes flicking about as if he's reading invisible text. This question is kind of-sort of-_really_ hard for him to answer properly, mostly because when he tries to, his mind starts to act like a malfunctioning printer noisily spitting out pages upon pages of incoherent junk.

"Loki?" Tony prods, nudges his nose against Loki's cheek like a neglected dog (oh, Tony, always so canine).

"I'm trying to come up with a response that sounds vaguely rational," Loki coughs, only half-lying.

"Just _talk_," Tony urges in a rushed, encouraging manner, and Loki is suddenly reminded of the day he broke down and poured his heart out to Tony, remembers how much of a mess he was as he cried and raged on about _gasp_, the accident. Tony said the exact same thing he's saying now a year ago to get him to spill.

And what do you know? Lightning _does_ strike in the same place twice.

"It's just that my cousins are all so _different_ from the way they used to be, when we were children and the world revolved around us," Loki starts to rant, uninhibited and indiscriminate, "And I'm not saying that _I _haven't changed, because I _know_ I have, but that doesn't mean I can't have a problem with _them_, right?"

"Right," Tony replies. He sounds sincere.

"Freyr is suddenly this lying, two-faced _jackass _I hardly recognize, Balder never really cared about me to begin with, and all Freya wants is for us to just play all day long and be little kids again," Loki goes on, "And they _all_ acted horribly, _horribly_, after the accident happened. It was nearly impossible for us to connect with each other, because being friendly with one person basically meant betraying everybody else. We were stuck picking sides like immature schoolchildren; Balder and Thor sat on the right of the fence, Freya and I on the left, and Freyr took all the heat because he _really_ liked riding barbed wire," he pauses to swallow a mouthful of saliva, and when he speaks again, his voice is slightly hoarse, "Then there's the fact that all I can think about every time they cross my mind is how things will probably never be the same with us, _ever_."

There's a stretch of spongy silence then, in which Tony absorbs Loki's words and Loki makes a valiant attempt to not completely freak the fuck out. You know that feeling where you're a vase, and the water that fills you is pure emotion? Loki feels like his metaphorical vase has been fumbled, like he's just wasted half of his contents and is barely salvaging the water he has left. He feels hurt. He feels pissed.

Tony ultimately manages to say, "Well, fuck. I'm sorry."

"Sorry you got tangled up with me?" Loki bitterly retorts, "_I'd_ be, with my mountain of issues…"

Tony scoffs and moves his arms (_again_; goddamn, Tony, are you capable of sitting still?) to hug Loki tightly, orders, "Don't say that. Don't even _think_ that."

"Easier said than done," Loki sighs. He closes his eyes, sniffs quietly.

And then there's this moment where it's painfully obvious that Tony doesn't know what to do or say or feel, where Loki kind of wants to start screaming like a banshee, or lay down and not get up for awhile, or just do _nothing_, nothing at all. _Dammit_; you know what _that_ means (depression).

Eventually, Loki feels Tony's lips pressing against the crest of his cheek, hears the man softly say, "I'm going to tell you something, okay? Don't read into it."

Loki nods, leaning into Tony and refusing to peel his eyes. Tony makes a soft noise and kisses him again, gentle and just a little desperate.

"First," Tony begins, "It upsetsme when you say things like you just did. You're acting like you're _so_ unworthy of my company, and I'll tell you right now how absolutely fucking _ridiculous _that is."

"Tony…" Loki begins to protest, his face screwing up in anxiety and dissent, but Tony quickly shushes him.

"I'm not done," Tony says in a hard voice that does its intended job of shutting Loki up pretty fucking well, "I don't_ ever_ want you to think that you're not worth something, and _yeah_, I know I sound like a fucking counselor or a cheerleader, but really? _I don't care_. If me giving you pep talks every time you do this self-loathing thing will make you stop, or at least ease up on _hating_ yourself, so be it.

"I know exactly what it feels like to not be able to stand yourself, because I go there, _a lot_. I _also_ know that there's always somebody who _does_ give a fuck about me, who gives a lot of fucks about me, and that I'm worth that. Why?" he pauses for emphasis, "Because if I wasn't, would I have it in the first place?"

Loki doesn't respond. He just bites the inside of his lip and tries with all his might to deny Tony's words. He isn't very successful.

And, while we're here, I'd like us all to take a moment to appreciate how fucking _genius_ Tony can be, and how amazing and rare it is that he takes the time to show it like he's doing now. It may not be obvious, but he thinks _really_ _hard_ about stuff like this, and he thinks about it all the time.

"Second," Tony continues, shifting his position just slightly, "I'm _sorry_, and I kind of feel like a dick for forcing you to talk about your cousins, okay? You don't have to tell me this story. I won't get mad."

_Wait_. That wouldn't be right at all, now would it?

"No, Tony," Loki croaks, and he coughs at the brokenness of his voice, "I'll tell you."

Tony hesitates for a few seconds before asking, "Are you sure?" Loki knows that the man is refraining from outright telling him _No don't do it I don't want you to have a nervous breakdown noooo_.

"Yeah," Loki shrugs, throwing on a small smile. Someone wise (or terribly stupid and influential) once said something about how smiling when you're unhappy tricks you into feeling joyful. Loki's subconsciously trying for something to that effect.

Tony nervously clears his throat, starts to say, "I mean, if it hurts your feeli–"

"I'm going to tell you regardless of how I feel," Loki cuts him off, "And before you say anything, this isn't me engaging in some form of self-torture. I just feel like you should know this about me, if that makes any sense."

Another pause, then Tony is conceding, with an odd mixture of uncertainty and pride, "As long as you're okay with it."

Loki forces his body, which has gone incredibly tense, to relax as he says, "I'm fine, don't worry. My cousins weren't wholly bad." He smoothes his fingers over his brow, mentally gives his spirits a swift kick upwards, and gives a deep sigh. Tony squeezes him for what he guesses is reassurance.

Shall we begin?

_**He's ten, now. Saucier than he was before and sharper than a tack. Hobbies include reading adult books and acting like he's better than everyone else.**_

_**Loki is minding his own business and reading **_**The Catcher in the Rye **_**aloud to Chinook, the too-sweet tramp that's been hanging out in the garage and bothering Mercury for the past two years, when Thor and Balder burst into the room like two wind gods on a gravely important mission.**_

"_**Put your hands up!" Thor cries, charging towards Loki and sticking his stupid, fat little finger in the other boy's face. Loki blinks.**_

"_**Why would I want to do that?" Loki questions. Chinook barks and hops off of the love seat they're perched on, starts to sniff and nip at Thor's bare, muddy ankles.**_

"_**You're under arrest!" Thor exclaims just as Freya peeks her head around the screen door, and before Loki can say anything in objection, Balder is grabbing him by the wrists and hauling him out of his seat. **_**The Catcher in the Rye**_** tumbles to the floor and closes with a resounding **_**snap**_**.**_

"_**Hey!" Loki shrieks, fighting against Balder's oppressively tight grip, "You made me lose my page!" Chinook continues to yap and circle around Thor's feet.**_

_**Instead of responding to Loki's complaints, Balder looks straight to Thor (predictable, **_**ugh**_**), who sets his face in a hard, stony glare and bites, "Stop whining. You're under arrest."**_

_**Yeah, Thor. We heard you the first time.**_

"_**That's not fair!" Loki protests, scowling something fierce at his brother. Fortunately (unfortunately), Freya decides that it's time to insert her oh-so important and immensely helpful suggestions (and by **_**suggestions**_**, I mean **_**demands**_**).**_

"_**You have to tell him his rights, Thor!" the girl points out, bouncing her perky self over to where her cousins stand. Loki glowers a bit at Freya, pissed even if she **_**is**_** sort of-kind of trying to help him out in a very roundabout way.**_

"_**Oh, yeah!" Thor gasps, his mask of anger temporarily giving way to realization. Then he's getting back up in Loki's face and reciting in an obviously rehearsed fashion, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you."**_

"_**In a court of law," Freya adds with a smirk. Little bitch.**_

"Oh my _God_," Tony laughs, "She's like Tinker Bell."

Loki chuckles quietly, says, "If Tinker Bell had the intellect of Napoleon Bonaparte, then yes. Very much so."

_**Thor brushes Freya's correction off and attempts to continue, "You have the right to a… to a…"**_

"_**You have the right to an attorney," Freya cuts in, all but stealing the show for herself, "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you," she giggles, "That's me, by the way."**_

"_**Oh, goody," Loki grumbles, still trying to wrestle out of Balder's grip. Freya's smile drops a bit, but she keeps on going (it's nearly impossible to get that girl down).**_

"_**Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?" she asks. **_

"Technically they didn't read me anything, but that didn't matter much to them," Loki notes.

"_**Sure I do," Loki retorts, "What I don't understand is why I'm being apprehended in the first place."**_

_**Ooh, he's mad. **_**Real**_** mad. You know how I can tell? He's using big words like **_**apprehended**_** to confuse everybody.**_

"_**You're under arrest," Thor barks, and oh my **_**God**_**, we **_**fucking know**_** already, "for bossiness, delin… daylin…"**_

"**Delinquency**_**," Freya inputs in a clipped tone, placing her hands on her hips in an eternal gesture of **_**I'm sassy and a whole lot smarter than you**_**, "And general tomfoolery."**_

"They really fucking planned that trial out, didn't they?" Tony questions, and his tone is simultaneously baffled and amused.

"They must have," Loki replies, "I don't see how they could have been so straightforward otherwise. Freyr and Freya were exceptionally bright, don't get me wrong, but I sincerely doubt that Thor and Balder would have played their parts so perfectly without a grand deal of preparation."

"_**Do you even know what delinquency **_**means**_**?" Loki challenges. He figures that if he can't best his cousins with brute force, what with their overpowering strength and determination, he might as well use his intelligence against them. It works. Most of the time. (Translation: Not always/close to never.)**_

_**Thor, Balder, and Freya are anxious and silent for a moment, obviously at a loss. Loki gives a hint of a smirk; not enough to provoke anger in his cousins, yet saying **_**I've got you**_** as well as a full-blown pokey tongue/devilish grin combination would.**_

_**But then, because the universe has hated Loki from the very beginning (it made him a Snow White among a family of Apollos and Rapunzels, after all), Freyr's voice is coming from the back doorway, and the four children turn to watch him as he clarifies, "Delinquency is defined as wrongful, illegal, or antisocial behavior." He's reading from the thick dictionary Odin keeps in his office, the one that's off-limits to them (mostly because they'd use it as a building block or a notebook instead of a reference source). Loki scowls.**_

"_**That's father's dictionary!" he cries as soon as Freyr puts an end to his self-righteous announcement. His frown deepens when the boy grins, taunting and haughty, in response.**_

"_**He'll never know. We'll be gentle," Freyr drawls, snapping the tome shut and rubbing its leathery cover.**_

"You know how some children from high class families adopt their parents' attitude?" Loki questions, "And they act so hoity-toity and prissy and inherently _better than you_ that you want to shoot yourself in the head just because you've _looked_ at them?"

There's an extremely brief moment of silence then, broken when Tony and Loki share a quiet laugh at the irony of Loki's statement. Considering the fact that they both come from well-to-do families, it's kind of funny that Loki's getting as fired up as he is.

"Yeah," Tony chuckles, clunking his chin against Loki's shoulder.

"That was what Freyr and Freya were like. Mostly Freyr," Loki elaborates, gesturing his hands accordingly.

"So, wait…" Tony interjects before Loki can dive back into story mode, "You're saying that your cousins acted like their parents. Does that mean that _they_ were douchey smartasses, too?"

"Oh, _Lord_," Loki snorts, "Don't even get me _started_ on my aunts and uncles."

"They're _that_ bad?" Tony asks, and when Loki starts to amble his way down the bitch trail, he quickly adds, "You don't have to go into detail! I'm only curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Loki says, just to be annoying and because he can. Tony pinches his side, and a sharp laugh escapes him. Damn ticklishness to hell.

"_Loki_," Tony whines, pressing his knuckles into said man's back (because he likes to be a pest, too; more so than Loki by a very long shot).

Loki huffs, but it's not a vexed or indignant expression. He says, "If you _must _know, three out of five of my aunts and uncles are, as you say, _douchey smartasses_, and they just happen to be the parents of my cousins. The other two are pretty great, though."

"I see," Tony hums. He sounds satisfied with Loki's answer.

_**Loki glares hard and venomous at Freyr, protests, "We could all be grou–" **_

"_**Shut up!" Thor cuts him off, his voice high and whiny. His words are like arrows dipped in poison, jammed right into the back of Loki's head. **_**Ouch.**

_**Loki's mouth hangs open even after words have stopped coming out of it, and he turns as much as he can without twisting his arms off (Balder's got him tight, man) to stare at his brother with wide, shocked, **_**hurt**_** eyes. Thor responds to his gaze with a strong, forceful one of his own, faltering only for a moment before he's setting his mouth and cocking his chin up like the ass he truly is.**_

_**And then, before anyone has time to freak out or stop this **_**atrocity**_** from commencing, Thor and Balder are grabbing Loki almost completely off the ground and dragging him out the door and into the backyard, Freyr, Freya, and Chinook following close behind them. Loki is quite literally kicking and screaming (seriously; how the **_**fuck**_** does Aunt Volla not hear this nonsense taking place?) as his cousins carry him down the porch steps, across the yard, and into what is possibly the most barbaric place to dump him; Mercury's doghouse. **_

_**That's right. The **_**doghouse**_**.**_

"That's some messed up shit, man," Tony laughs, and his words come out sounding bitter and extraordinarily nonplussed. Loki doesn't say anything in response, but it's fairly obvious that he agrees.

_**Thor roughly shoves Loki into the empty doghouse, proclaiming, "You're in jail, now!" like it's something Loki's supposed to be **_**happy**_** about. Balder shoves a bamboo lattice against the entrance to act as a makeshift cage-door. **_

_**Freyr leans down to peer through the matrix, and says with a positively **_**evil**_** smirk, "Now you're gonna wait for your lawyer."**_

_**Sounds like fun. Bucketfulls of it.**_

_**Loki doesn't respond verbally. Instead, he deigns to glare daggers of painful and bloody **_**death**_** at his cousins and brother until they decide to walk away, huddling close and whispering amongst themselves. And you know what he does then?**_

"Guess," Loki prompts, glancing at Tony. Tony makes a slightly uncomfortable face, tenses up.

"You cried?" he tries hesitantly, his shoulders rising just a bit.

_**He cries.**_

Tony frowns.

_**He crawls into the darkest corner of the doghouse, curls up into a tight ball, and cries. And cries some more. And cries **_**some more**_**. Because nothing is ever fair for him, and he's being imprisoned in a doghouse and put on trial, and everybody seems to hate him for no reason at all, and Aunt Volla can't save him, and he's lost his place in **_**The Catcher in the Rye**_**, and his wrists **_**really**_** hurt, and he's **_**alone**_**. So utterly **_**alone**_**.**_

_**After a million horribly lengthy moments of total breakdown, Loki hears a rapid rap, rap, rapping at his cage door. He looks up to see Freya crouched in front of the doghouse, her skirt pooling around her knees and her grin bright and sunshiney, as per usual. He fails to be warmed by her blatant enthusiasm.**_

"_**Keys!" Freya chirps, placing her small, dainty hand against the lattice imprisoning Loki, "Come closer!"**_

"'_Keys'_?" Tony asks, "Where did _that_ come from?"

Loki pauses, lost. For a moment, he can't even _begin_ to recall how the slightly annoying nickname his cousins always use came to be; that habit was formed quite a _long_ time ago. Then it hits him like an eighteen-wheeler on an icy road, and he starts to laugh _really fucking __**hard**_.

"What?" Tony questions, moving to give Loki a simultaneously bemused and bewildered look. Loki shakes his head, still chuckling.

"It's _really_ stupid," Loki laughs, and he shifts his position so that he's slung somewhat diagonally across Tony's lap (because it's been kind of awkward talking to Tony without being able to look him in the face).

"Well, that's even better," Tony replies with a grin. He has a great smile, he does.

Loki smirks a bit, and Tony raises his chin at him in response. Loki sticks his tongue out. Tony waggles his eyebrows. And then they're doing this _ridiculous_ face-making at each other, until both of them can't bat an eyelash or quirk a lip without bursting into laughter at the other's most likely _hilarious_ expression.

"_Tell _me," Tony whines when he can cease his laughing long enough to do so, leaning far into Loki's face and pouting his perfectly perfect pout, "Is it an inside joke you've sworn not to share?"

"Something like that," Loki shrugs, and when Tony's nose touches his just slightly, he chuckles, "We used to play this game where we'd act like superheroes."

Tony is still and straight-faced for about a half-second. As soon as that's over, he's ducking his head (so that he doesn't up and _explode_ right in Loki's face) and laughing just as hard as he was moments before.

Loki bites back a grin (he's _not_ embarrassed; just slightly bashful and a little protective of his childhood pleasures), elaborates, "All of us had special names and powers."

"I'm guessing your name was '_Keys_'?" Tony snorts, poking Loki's stomach playfully. Loki catches the man's hand between his palms and smiles.

"It was," he says a bit triumphantly, feeling a rush of pride at the memory of his alter ego, "And I had the power to control ice or something like that. I could freeze people with my touch."

"That's adorable, Loki," Tony coos, lays his head against Loki's left shoulder. He wiggles his fingers against their confines and asks, "What about Thor?"

"His name was Thundakat," Loki half-blurts, and when Tony laughs, sharp and rough, he says, "I'm dead serious. And it wasn't Thun-_der_-cat. It was _Thundakat_, and if anyone pronounced it otherwise, Thor would get really angry and make a huge fuss correcting them."

"He controlled the weather, didn't he?" Tony presumes. His breath hits the side of Loki's neck and reminds him how to feel warm all over.

"That he did," Loki answers, smiling a toothy smile and briefly shutting his eyes, "And he'd throw 'thunderbolts' at everybody, which were really just old, bent-up coat hangers."

Tony shakes his head affectionately, grins, and sighs, "Sounds like loads of fun."

_**Loki frowns and looks away, his eyes finding a mud-spattered rubber ball sitting in the opposite corner of the doghouse. He mumbles, simple and not-so-sweet, "No."**_

_**Freya presses closer to the bamboo matrix, blocking out most of the light making its way into the darkness of the doghouse, and croons, "Aww, Loki, come on. I'm here to help you, remember?"**_

"_**You're doing a stellar job," Loki murmurs against his arm, sniffing quietly.**_

"_**What?" Freya asks, and she's practically smashing her face into the lattice at this point, "I can't hear you."**_

"_**It doesn't matter," Loki replies in a harder, slightly louder voice. He just wants Freya (and the rest of his cousins, for that matter) to leave him be; never mind that if they did, he'd probably be stuck in this makeshift jail until Mother and Father get home, and Lord knows when **_**that**_** will happen.**_

_**But he **_**won't**_** be left alone. Such is the nature of the world to leave him upset and angry with everything.**_

_**Freya hesitates for a moment, then says, just a tad desperate, "Well, what does matter is your innocence."**_

_**What.**_

"She seriously fucking said that?" Tony asks. The query sounds more like an incredulous statement than an actual question.

"You'll find that blatant selfishness runs in my family," Loki replies, releasing Tony's hand so that he can sling his arm around the man's shoulders, "And believe me, the things they say shock me as much as they do you."

_**It only takes two seconds for Loki to pick his jaw up off the ground and magically transform confusion into rage. He's just a regular Criss Angel, isn't he?**_

"_**My **_**innocence**_**?" Loki challenges, scrambling (rather gracefully) over to the entrance of the doghouse and getting in Freya's face the best he can to snarl, "**_**You're**_** the one who put me in here and called me **_**guilty**_** in the first place!"**_

_**Freya's face contorts into an affronted expression, and she argues, "I didn't do **_**anything**_**!"**_

"_**Exactly. You didn't **_**do**_** anything, therefore you let Thor and Balder and Freyr shut me up in here," Loki retorts, clawing his fingers around the bamboo separating him from his cousin.**_

"_**I'm only trying to help you!" Freya cries, her lips tightening and her face growing rosy red. The girl's gray-green eyes are sharp and determined as she speaks, and Loki abruptly remembers that **_**oh yeah**_**, Freya actually **_**does**_** give a flying fuck about him.**_

"Freya was my best friend except for Thor," Loki says, "We always sort of revolved in the same circles, you know? She was witty; I was witty. She liked good music and cute boys; I just happened to like the same."

(FYI: For the record, Loki is, technically speaking, bisexual. _Just saying_.)

Tony snorts a laugh at Loki's comment and asks, quite sarcastically, "Did you have sleepovers to paint your nails and braid your hair?"

"_Yeah_," Loki replies, accenting the statement with a brief chuckle, "And we'd share secrets and tell on everyone else all the time. Freya and I were quite the pair."

"So even though she was… the lovechild of Napoleon and Tinker Bell," Tony interjects, drawing a small, modest laugh from Loki and pausing to snicker himself, "… you still love her." The statement is either a cleverly disguised question or an outright assumption. Loki assumes it's the first, and he pauses, bites his lip.

"Yes," he replies after some thought, "I do. Did. Do."

"Are you sure?" Tony snorts incredulously, raising his head off of Loki's shoulder to throw him one of his Stark-patented _I'm onto you_ smirks.

"Not really, to be honest," Loki admits. He smiles in a tight-lipped, sheepish manner, idly rubs his fingers against Tony's bare shoulder (he's a relentless tease, can't you tell?) and says, "I mean, I _adored_ her when we were close, but now I never see her anymore."

"That doesn't mean anything," Tony points out, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yes it does," Loki retorts, and he grins when Tony gives him a dull frown (almost _nothing_ rags on Tony more than getting shown up, and that's _exactly_ why Loki's pulling out all the stops to do just that), "Because I _do_ love Freya, I do, but since I haven't seen or talked pleasantly with her in three to four years, it's like… like I love a phantom of her, or what she used to be. Does that make any sense, or am I just stupid and entirely too analytical?"

"All of the above," Tony concedes, "Minus the stupidity."

Loki isn't at all offended. Especiallybecause Tony sweetens his words with a kiss to the cheek.

_**Loki wills himself into calmness and sighs, "I'm sorry." He wants to say more, wants to tell Freya that he **_**does**_** appreciate her concern, wants to excuse his actions on behalf of his anger, but he realizes that doing so would be unnecessary. Freya already **_**knows**_** all of that; she can probably see it written clearly in his eyes.**_

"_**Don't be," Freya peeps, kind of like a bluebird or something equally cute and feathered (because Freya is basically a bird in a little girl's body), "You have the right to be angry."**_

_**Loki can't argue with that. He casts his gaze to the ground and hopes Freya understands his silence. Which she **_**does**_**, of course.**_

"_**Look," Freya says, drawing Loki's eyes back up to her face, "It won't be that hard for us to beat Thor, who's our plaintiff, at his own game. I mean, **_**look**_** at us."**_

"Well, damn," Tony laughs, "Isn't she modest?"

"Freya is a bird and Tinker Bell and Napoleon and a princess," Loki huffs, and he does this cool, swirly thing with his fingers as he adds, "All wrapped into one."

"She sounds like a killer to me," Tony jests. Loki grins a bit.

"_**We only have **_**one**_** problem," Freya goes on, emphasizing her words with an index finger pointed upward. **_

"_**What's that?" Loki asks. An arrow of trepidation pierces his heart.**_

"_**Freyr is Thor's lawyer," Freya replies. She doesn't look **_**half**_** as scared as she should be, and believe me**_**, **_**she **_**needs**_** to be fucking **_**terrified**_**. **_

"What's so scary about Freyr?" Tony asks in a humorously offhanded tone, nuzzling gently against Loki's cheekbone. Loki pulls away with the intention of shooting his friend a dirty look, but Tony is (unsurprisingly) quick and eager to follow after him. The man noses into the hollow of Loki's cheek with a tiny smirk, and that's about all it takes for Loki to just give up and _take_ the affection.

"_Have_ you been listening?" Loki questions without much heat, and when Tony only laughs in response (the prick), he sighs, "Freyr and Freya are both geniuses, right?"

"I follow," Tony hums nonchalantly, and if he isn't being the hugest _douchebag_ of all time right now, and for no reason at all…

"What sets them apart is their morality," Loki says, "Freya _always_ plays fair, but Freyr would never hesitate to cheat if it meant victory for him. _That's_ what makes him so dangerous."

Very out-of-the-blue, Tony asks, "Is he in school?"

Loki makes a face (that's just a tad hilarious), pauses, then slowly replies, "Yes. Why?"

"What does he study?" Tony inquires instead of answering Loki's question.

"Fine art. _Why_?" Loki snaps, and for the record, he is _not_ pissed off right now. A little vexed, maybe, but not outright _angry_. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, I know.

Tony moves to flash a pacifying smile at Loki, gives an airy shrug, and says, "Well, I was just wondering whether or not dear-old Freyr wants to take advantage of his evil genius in the fields of law and science."

"Oh, please," Loki huffs, "Being a lawyer is too much stress and responsibility for him to handle."

"He'd get money," Tony inputs, and all Loki can think is _You must be new_ (even if he knows Tony's not and is just trying to be argumentative and annoying).

"He already gets enough of that from his father, and he's smart and calculating enough to trick some clueless, well-to-do fool into falling in love with his horrible self," Loki retorts a bit testily.

Tony is silent as he makes a sturgeon-y face of acknowledgment. Loki leans forward, on impulse, to touch his nose to his friend's (because _yes_, he _was_ enjoying that tomfoolery from earlier), and he smiles when Tony moves closer to accommodate him.

"Basically, Freyr's a shark and we're deep in the water," Loki chuckles. His words are slightly muffled in Tony's jaw as the man continues his incessant nuzzling and kissing against his cheek. _Goddamn_, does he want to return the favor.

"_**What?" Loki gasps, his heart suddenly a heavy stone in the cavern of his chest. Freyr **_**can't**_** be on Thor's side; he just **_**can't**_** be.**_

_**Freya notices the terror in Loki's voice and frowns a bit, nervously bringing a pretty pink fingernail to her lips. She says, "Don't worry. Freyr won't be **_**that**_** mean."**_

"_**Are you kidding? He's going to rip us apart!" Loki cries, rapidly running his fingers through his dark mop of hair in a blatant expression of anxiety.**_

"_**That's my **_**brother**_** you're talking about," Freya tersely reminds him, and this look of understanding and realization and **_**horror**_** passes between the two children as soon as the words have left her mouth. That **_**is**_** her brother Loki's talking about; her cruel **_**vampire**_** of a brother, and they're going to have to confront his monstrosity very soon, ready or not.**_

"_**Okay. I get it," Freya concedes, the hard line of her body curving into a downhearted slouch, "You're right."**_

_**Fuck **_**yeah**_**, he's right.**_

"_**We need a plan, Freya," Loki declares, "What are we going to do? What are **_**they**_** going to do? How will we fight them?"**_

_**Freya silences Loki with an assertive up-turned finger, then starts to say, "Balder's the judge…"**_

"_**Oh, crap!" Loki moans, lamenting over the extremely legitimate assumption that Balder would probably rule in Thor's favor even if all the evidence in the world proved against the boy.**_

"_**Wait!" Freya exclaims, shoving her finger through one of the square gaps in the lattice and poking it over the seam of Loki's lips. She narrows her eyes as Loki moves, wide-eyed, out of her reach, and there's a small stretch of silence before the girl continues, "**_**Because**_** he's the judge, you can wager that Thor and Freyr are going to take advantage of his bias and fear."**_

_**Loki nods.**_

"**Our**_** best bet is to confuse Balder," Freya says, "Inflation. Propaganda." She throws her hands up in the air. "Melodrama!"**_

"_**Shh!" Loki hisses abruptly, "You don't want them to hear us, do you?"**_

_**Freya goes still, then emits a slightly sarcastic giggle, flings a finger over her shoulder, and snorts, "They're in the kitchen right now. They wouldn't hear us if we were screaming at the top of our lungs."**_

_**Loki is struck with the memory of the very last cup of blueberry custard he'd been saving, and he lets out a lengthy mental wail of anguish. **_**Dammit**_**.**_

"_**What we need to do is exaggerate your innocence," Freya goes on in a firm voice, "That way, Balder will be just overwhelmed by the unfairness of your persecution." (This is sounding a little like **_**Chicago**_**, isn't it?)**_

"_**Wait," Loki cuts in, "Are you implying that I'm **_**not**_** innocent?" He'd heard somewhere that the worst kind of lawyer is one that doesn't believe in you. Hopefully Freya isn't one of those.**_

_**Freya hesitates for a moment before asking, "Who **_**is**_**?"**_

"Amen to that," Tony interjects, his voice a blaring thing of sound in Loki's ear (because his mouth has been pressing at the base of Loki's jaw for about three minutes straight, and _yeah_, that's a _long fucking time_ to be kissing in one spot). Loki moves the hand he has rested on Tony's shoulder to run through the man's messy hair, and Tony lets out a deep, purring noise of pleasure.

_**Loki doesn't respond, deigning to just seal his lips and sit back on his haunches. The girl has a point, and they both damn well know it.**_

"_**All you need to do is be super weepy and really, really, **_**really**_** cute," Freya instructs, wringing her hands for emphasis, "And don't get mad, okay? You get mad and we're screwed."**_

_**A pause, then Loki is saying, a bit reluctantly, "Okay."**_

"**I'll**_** do all the talking," Freya assures him with a bright, terrifically sunny smile, "Don't you worry about a thing."**_

"_**Okay," Loki repeats, this time with an even greater degree of uncertainty.**_

_**What if **_**he****wants**_** to fight for his innocence? And to speak up? And to be brave and strong? He's never gotten a chance to do **_**that**_** before.**_

"So did you win on account of Freya's stellar planning?" Tony asks. There's an inkling of doubt in his words, like he already knows how shitty Loki's answer will be.

Loki makes this weird, noncommittal noise and retorts, "Do I _ever_ win?"

Tony is speechless for about a minute, and Loki only knows to not go on telling his story because of the array of expressions that flash across his friend's face during that period of time. On second sixty-one, Tony sighs, "You _kill_ me when you say things like that."

"Maybe you shouldn't hang out with me so much, then," Loki jests with a smirk, doing what he does best and avoiding potential conflict like the plague. Tony gives him a sarcastic grin.

"Maybe _you_ should shut up and kiss me," he counters a bit dumbly, already moving for Loki's lips.

"Maybe _you_ shouldn't constantly try to molest me," Loki laughs, and the funny thing is that he's palming Tony's jaw and kissing at his lips as he's saying this. Doesn't _he_ make sense?

"Maybe _you_ should stop being so flawless," Tony purrs. His voice is light, joking, but his gaze is dark and deadly serious, almost scarily so. Loki ceases his ministrations for a moment, stricken.

He's thinking about Tony. He's thinking about how the boundary between them only exists because _he_ (not Tony) says it does. He's thinking about the rules adults would set for you when you were little, the ones that were constantly brought up but never really followed. He's thinking about how long a week is. He's thinking about his heart. He's thinking about Tony. He's thinking about Tony. He's thinking about Tony.

"Maybe I should," Loki says, raising his eyes to Tony's, and it's almost comical how fast his mood has dropped, how Tony immediately _knows_ it just by the look on his face. While we're here, I'd like to point out reason number two why Loki loves Tony Stark: the man is fucking _sensitive_ to his feelings. Seriously.

Tony briefly kneads his lips together, leans his forehead against Loki's. There's a beat of awkward silence between them before he murmurs, "I'm just going to say that I love you and you're really great. Because I can't think of a better response."

"That's a _horrible_ thing to say," Loki replies, and when Tony makes a face at him, he adds, "Not because of what you said. It was just a bad time for you to say it."

And honestly? He feels like he's the most terrible person in the world right now, because everything he says is _wrong _(Like, really? How the _fuck_ can he tell Tony that such a wonderful compliment is _horrible_?), everything he does is _wrong _(What the hell is the matter with him, denying Tony what they _hello?_, both want?), everything he feels is _right_ (That's just a given.), and everything he is is _wrongwrong__**wrong **_(Like always.).

Tony gets this weird, absolutely horrid look on his face, and then he's shaking his head, looking away (Loki hates _that_, that moment when Tony can't even _look_ at him because he's such a bitch), and murmuring, "I don't know what to say."

Loki knows he's fucked up _bad_ when Tony is at a total loss for words, when he _himself_ can't think of a goddamn thing to say.

Eventually, he asks (quite stupidly), "Why are you wasting your time on _me_, of all people?"

Scowling, Tony replies in a clipped, short tone, "You know the answer to that."

Loki does. He just refuses to accept it.

"But you could do so much better…" he starts to say, and this look of understanding and jealousy and _guilt_ passes between him and Tony for about a microsecond (because _shit __**goddammit**_, Tony's _almost_ there, Tony's _got_ a second choice, Tony _has_ this perfect/wonderful/awesome person he could be chasing after, and he's got his fucking eyes on _Loki_ instead) before Tony's expression morphs into something wretched, something _pissed_.

"What did I say to you?" the man asks a bit coldly, holding Loki's gaze with dark, stormy eyes.

Loki blinks, remembering, and says with the autonomy of a robot, "You told me not to hate myself."

(FYI: Just to be completely clear, Loki _absolutely_ appreciates Tony's boundless praise and devotion for him. He really does. That doesn't mean that his depression and self-loathing are magically irrelevant in the face of it, though; _if only _things could be so simple. _He_ can't flip a switch in his head and suddenly love himself, so why should Tony be able to?

I know it sucks. I _know_. I know that everything is imperfect and complicated and just _so _unpleasant for all the people of the world, most of all Loki and Tony, but there are some things that just don't change. When exceptionally wise, insightful human beings say _Anything is possible_, they haven't considered shit like _this_.)

"I told you to _never_ think you're not worth something, especially not_ me_," Tony responds in a softer tone, nearly lionlike in the subtle, static tension tainting his demeanor.

"But I–" Loki begins, and when Tony makes to cut him off, he cries, "Wait! Let me say this, will you?"

Tony frowns, but goes obediently silent.

"This is what I'm talking about," Loki says in a deliberately slow manner (he's trying to get Tony to _listen_), "When I start acting like _this_, I just… I can't stand the fact that _I'm_ the one you want to waste your time on. And I'm going to be honest with you; you _are_ wasting your time."

Loki ends his statement abruptly, almost as if he's been slapped or burnt. He closes his eyes for a moment, attempting to force down the surge of hurt pushing its way up inside him.

Tony angles his head thoughtfully, asks, "Can _I_ be honest with _you_?"

"Of course," is Loki's soft reply, and he's only a little terrified to hear what Tony has to say (which is fucking _ridiculous_, by the way). Ironically, Tony looks just as scared.

"If I'm wasting my time, I don't mind it one bit," Tony says a bit shakily, "It doesn't matter whether you're happy or sad, pretty or ugly, on top of the world or falling to pieces; I still want and adore you more than anything. Even when I think you're going to make me shoot myself in the head or just _explode_, I can't even think about not loving you." He pauses for emphasis. "Okay?"

Loki swallows thickly, echoes, "Okay."

"I'm not asking you to feel exactly the same about me. I'm not," Tony goes on with a slight, airy smile, "I'm only asking you to feel the same way about _yourself_."

_There_. That's what makes the guilt Loki's carrying around so much heavier, so much _worse_.

Loki doesn't say anything in response, opting to just examine every inch of Tony's beautiful, _beautiful_ face. You know _that_ feeling, where you're caught between crying and laughing, where your stomach rolls and your head spins, where you have absolutely no idea what to do with yourself? Yeah. That's what Loki's going through.

Tony returns Loki's observatory gaze, prompts, "Tell me more about the trial, yeah? Give me one more reason to hate Thor's guts."

Loki feels a small tug at the corner of his mouth. He tucks his baggage into some unseen pocket of his mind, bringing the trial to the forefront of his attention.

_**Loki and Freya have to wait for about five minutes (it feels like **_**five hundred**_**) before Thor, Balder, and Freyr emerge from the house, energized with food and certain victory. The three boys all but drag Loki out of his makeshift prison to the center of the yard, where they force everyone to form a sloppy circle. Loki ends up squished between Freyr and Freya. Chinook noses his way into the center of the circle as Freyr raises his head to speak.**_

"_**We're going to have a fair trial, everybody," the little shit announces authoritatively (Lord, how **_**dramatic**_**), and Loki resists the urge to call bullshit then and there, "Balder's the judge because he's the most unbiased."**_

"And really, that's just a crock of _shit_," Loki says a bit tersely, "In all actuality, _Freyr_ is probably the most unbiased of us all. The only reason why Balder's the judge is because the trial was designed for Thor to win."

"_**Freya will be Loki's lawyer and I'll be Thor's," Freyr goes on, glancing between the brothers, "Thor's the plaintiff, Loki's the defendant."**_

"_**That means you're the bitch," Thor interjects, shooting Loki a haughty smirk.**_

_**Loki's first instinct is to **_**one**_**, counter Thor's grin with a nasty look (because **_**really**_**, they are **_**way**_** too young to be, **_**gasp**_**, swearing), and **_**two**_**, jump across the circle and attack his ass. But Freya's holding his hand **_**so tightly**_**, and he really wants to win this trial, and he promised that he **_**wouldn't**_** get angry. So, instead of following his heart (he should probably do that more often), he assumes the best wounded-puppy expression he can muster, slouches his shoulders, and deepens his eyes to show just how full of **_**woe**_** he is. Thor's smirk shrinks slightly.**_

"_**Is everybody in agreement over this arrangement?" Freyr asks, effectively ending the moment of tension. As soon as the question is out in the air, four pairs of pale, dagger-sharp eyes direct themselves at Loki (because everybody knows that if **_**someone**_** has a problem, that someone is Loki). And what does he do?**_

"You didn't say anything, did you?" Tony cuts in, nearly startling Loki with the abruptness of his question. Loki glances at his friend, takes in the open-door, solemn sort of expression on his face.

"I didn't," he replies in an even tone, "And it's sad, because that's _exactly_ what they expected me to do. They all knew I was too scared to speak up; they were just teasing me."

Tony makes a quiet noise of acknowledgement and looks down, returning his head to Loki's shoulder.

_**When it's clear that the silence hanging over the children's heads isn't going to be broken, Freyr claps his hands together and says, "Let's get started, then."**_

_**Chinook barks.**_

_**Thor and Balder get to work pulling two lawn chairs from the porch to the back of the yard and stacking three cartons of bricks (yes, **_**bricks**_**, and before you say anything about that load being too heavy for eleven year-olds, remember the time in your life when you and almost every child around you believed that you were all absolutely invincible). Freyr sprints into the house for about thirty seconds before returning with a Bible (fast, isn't he?), which he hands to Balder. Then, Thor and Loki are lining up to take their oaths.**_

"_**Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?" Balder asks in his quiet, mumbling tone as Thor places his hand on the Bible.**_

"_**Yeah!" Thor crows, and Loki is both too pissed and too scared to correct his brother.**_

_**Without missing a beat (because **_**nobody **_**corrects Thor), Balder quickly turns to him and repeats his question, which Loki replies to with a grave, "I do."**_

"I always thought that that oath was rather silly," Loki softly notes, "Because you know that half the people who go to court aren't planning on telling the truth."

"Would _you_?" Tony asks almost idly, walking his fingers along the mattress to take Loki's hand.

"If it meant incriminating myself, absolutely not," Loki replies. He threads his fingers with Tony's, feeling a minute twinge of guilt only for a moment.

_**Thor and Freyr take their places on one lawn chair, Loki, Freya, and Chinook on the other, and Balder climbs to the top of his makeshift tower.**_

"_**Court is now in session!" Freya announces to the world (and **_**really**_**, **_**Balder**_**'s the one who should be doing all of this), "Thor's going first." She pauses to turn to said boy, commands, "Go sit in the middle."**_

_**Loki tenses as Thor does what he's told (**_**woah!**_**, he's capable of **_**that**_**?), and he opens his mouth a bit hesitantly to ask, "Shouldn't we sit **_**next****to**_** the judge?" That's what they do on TV, right?**_

"_**Shouldn't you stop talking?" Thor rudely retorts, and it's all Loki can do to not break down into a primitive, screaming mess.**_

"You know what bothers me the _most_ about Thor?" Tony cuts in, his voice hard and blade-sharp with barely concealed anger.

"What's that?" Loki asks in what he hopes is an offhanded, even manner, because honestly? He won't be able to finish this tale if he lets himself get hung up on every instance Thor being a bag of dicks (aka, this _whole fucking story_).

"The fact that he really didn't – _doesn't_ – have a reason to be such an ass to you," Tony grumbles, shifting into a more upright sitting position and scowling vexedly.

Loki snort-laughs, "Are you kidding? I was an annoying fucking kid."

"Oh my God…" Tony sighs, shakes his head.

"I'm serious!" Loki goes on with a laugh, "I was annoying, and bossy, and an insufferable smartass."

"But you didn't mean anything bad by that," Tony argues. He's using his _Why do I even try with you anymore?_ voice, so Loki's certain that he's pigeonholed his friend quite a bit tonight.

"That didn't matter to Thor," Loki points out, "Just like it didn't matter to me that he was '_never serious_' or '_just playing_' when he'd degrade me almost every day."

Tony makes a hilariously conflicted face and whines, "Why do you make it so hard for me to agree with you?"

Chuckling, Loki replies, "I promise I don't try to." He levels Tony with a mildly curious look, leans closer to him and asks, "Why are you so aggravated? Is it me?"

"No, no!" Tony immediately protests, almost too fast for truthfulness. He does the weirdest, most wonderful thing and tucks his face against Loki's, mumbles, "I'm just… emotional."

On the verge of yet _another_ dispute (and _of course_, this kind of stuff _always_ happens to Loki), Loki quickly climbs out of Tony's lap, much to the man's chagrin, and stretches out on the mattress. He tugs lightly on Tony's hand and says, "I didn't want to get your feelings all in a rut. I'm sorry."

Tony is silent for a particularly tense moment, after which he snorts, moves to lie facedown next to Loki, and replies, "Too bad, 'cause you're a pro at doing just that."

Loki scowls.

"Kidding," Tony laughs, folding his arms underneath his chin, "Don't worry about me. You know how weird I get sometimes."

Loki briefly mulls over his friend's words in his head. He turns, just begging to get a divine slap in the face, to hug against Tony's side and notes, "I do."

"Keep talking," Tony murmurs, snuggles into Loki's embrace with a small yawn, "Ignore me."

Draping his arm across Tony's back, Loki sighs, "Never." He keeps going, though.

_**Loki's distress goes completely unaddressed in the wake of Thor's ugly comment. Straight-faced and eager for interrogation, Freya crawls off of her lawn chair to stand before her cousin.**_

"_**Mister Skywalker," the girl begins (and isn't that a funny way to preface a question, considering that all the children share the same surname?), "I must ask why you've filed a complaint against your brother."**_

_**Freya's using this carefully neutral, subtly questioning tone that's just enough to put you slightly off-kilter. It's the voice of a lawyer, and Loki loves her unconditionally for it.**_

"_**Well, he's a know-it-all," Thor answers a bit matter-of-factly, cutting his eyes to Loki as he speaks.**_

"_**Maybe he's just smarter than you," Freya counters.**_

"_**Objection!" Freyr suddenly exclaims, and he effortlessly manages to scare the living hell out of everyone (including Thor) with his outburst, "That wasn't a question!"**_

_**The children anxiously turn to Balder for a ruling. In response, the boy pauses, screws his face up for a moment, and says, "Not overruled?"**_

"Oh my _God_," Tony interjects against his arm. Loki smirks.

"_**You're supposed to say '**_**sustained**_**'," Freya swiftly corrects.**_

"_**Sustained," Balder amends, curling into himself and shielding his face with his hands.**_

_**Loki, Freyr, and Chinook return their eyes to Freya, who returns her eyes to Thor, who gives Freya a triumphant, haughty smirk. Freya doesn't so much as bat an eyelash.**_

"_**What has Loki ever done to you?" the girl asks evenly, casting a sideward glance Loki's way. Loki watches Thor intently, making sure that everything about him oozes sorrow and betrayal. Thor just happens to find the ground infinitely more fascinating than everything else in that moment (naturally).**_

"_**Well, he's annoying," Thor replies roughly, "And he's always telling Mom and Dad what we do. And he acts like he knows **_**everything**_**, and he cries all the time, and he's just really horrible, okay?" Thor's voice grows progressively louder, **_**angrier**_**, as he goes, and it gets to the point where he's bold enough to look Loki dead in the face and say, "Nobody likes him."**_

_**Do you hear that? That's the sound of Loki's heart splitting in two uneven, asymmetrical fragments. They hurt like a cancer, Thor's words, especially when Loki knows how **_**true**_** they are.**_

"_Loki_…" Tony whines, high and desperate. Loki raises his head off of his friend's shoulder blade to return the longing gaze getting thrown his way, and it's almost impossible for him to keep his cool when Tony's looking at him with such adoration, such _hurt_.

"I like you," Tony says, "I like you a lot."

"I know, Tony," Loki breathes with a small, sad smile. He squeezes Tony's sides, drawing a small groan from the man, and adds, "I like you, too."

Tony's lips curve into a pleased smile as he murmurs, almost like he's telling a secret, "I wish I could have been there for you."

For a moment, Loki can't even say anything in reply. Tony's gone ahead and done what he does best by rendering him absolutely speechless, and _really_, Loki doesn't know if the sudden sensation of suffocation he's experiencing is a sign of something wonderful or something horrible. Probably the former.

"I wish I always had you," Loki manages to choke out, and then he's squishing the life out of Tony, tightening his arms around the man's middle and pressing soft, loving kisses against his shoulder and cheek. With a smile only Tony's allowed to see, he whispers, "You're absolutely perfect."

"Only because you think I am," Tony rejoins. He's all-out grinning, now. "Keep going."

(FYI that is more like subtext than actual important information: Loki's pretty sure the only reason why he's going _at all_, in terms of both what's happening now and his life in general, is Tony. True story.)

_**Freya's response is just shy of appalled. Her pale face goes rosy red and her eyes narrow to predatory, dangerous slivers of gray-green as she retorts, "Have you ever entertained the thought that maybe **_**you're**_** the **_**only one**_** who feels this way?"**_

_**Now this right here is a prime example of Freya's genius. That she can form her words as eloquently as a glassblower forms glass, all while disguising accusation as a question, is both admirable and frightening at her age.**_

_**Thor doesn't reply at first, his mind obviously having been jumbled by Freya's verbal assault. He fumbles for an answer, eventually coming out with, "I don't have to, because it's obvious everybody else feels the same."**_

"_**Elaborate on that for me," Freya prompts (will you just **_**look**_** at how much swagger this little girl has?).**_

_**Thor sets his brow, says, "Loki never lets us have fun. He's always worrying about the rules, and getting caught, and what Mom and Dad are gonna think of us if they find out. And that makes us **_**really**_** angry." He turns to Freyr. "Right?"**_

"_**Right," Freyr echoes.**_

_**Thor looks to Balder and repeats his query. Balder nods silently.**_

_**Loki can barely contain the contempt bubbling up like boiling water inside him. He can feel his eyes starting to burn with tears, his stomach starting to churn and roll, his skin starting to itch with anger. Thor would really go **_**there**_**, would do **_**that**_** to him?**_

"_**Is that so?" Freya challenges, and the sound of her voice reminds Loki how to breathe like a normal human being and see in colors other than red.**_

_**Of course, Thor immediately shatters Loki's forced state of zen by exclaiming, "Yeah, it's so! Loki's so annoying, only Mom and Dad wanna hang out with him!"**_

_**Freyr emits a hushed '**_**oooh**_**'. Balder winces. Loki gasps. Chinook barks.**_

"_**And not even Dad!" Thor thunders on, "Only **_**Mom**_** wants him, and that's just because she has to!"**_

_**Loki slowly lowers his head so that his messy mop of hair hides his damp, reddened face. He's never felt so ashamed or wronged in his whole life, never been so scared of what could happen to him in the future because of what's happening to him now. What if he ends up like those kids in middle school, the ones who have raccoon eyes and wear a lot of black and listen to music so sad it makes your soul cry? And what if he turns into one of those high-schoolers that hang out in alleyways and smoke grass all the time and live in holes in their rooms? And what if he never finds a job and lives with Mother and Father until they die, and he buys twenty cats with all the money he's inherited, and he withers away and dies all alone, and nobody will know until one of the neighbors smells him, only to find that he's been eaten by his pathetic feline friends?**_

"_**That's enough, Thor!" Freya interrupts.**_

"_**Objection! Not a –" Freyr starts to say.**_

"_**Shut **_**up**_**, you!" Freya cuts her brother off, not bothering to turn and do with her eyes what she's already accomplishing with her voice. Freyr's expression melts into impassive vacancy (and really, this just proves how much better Freyr and Freya mesh together compared to Thor and Loki; even while on opposing sides, they still work as a team… sort of).**_

_**Prissily, Freya clamps her hands down on her hips and flips her golden locks out of her face to show how very authoritative and righteously **_**pissed**_** she is. She fixes her eyes, now wide and round with anger, on Thor, who's just radiating pure douchebaggery.**_

"_**Do you care about Loki, Mister Skywalker?" Freya asks, the end of her question tinged with venom and hurt. In that moment, Loki knows that Freya loves him. He **_**knows**_**, and that's pretty much the only reason why he's not totally breaking down right now (even though he **_**is**_** quite close to doing so).**_

_**Thor doesn't hesitate in answering his cousin. In a tone far too self-assured, he replies, "Yeah, I do! But that doesn't mean I like him."**_

"Can I keep you?" Tony asks abruptly. Loki angles his head to look at his friend as he goes on with, "Because I really just want to lock you in my body and never let you get hurt ever again."

"I'd love that," Loki hums, and he suddenly realizes how sleepy he truly is (the only reason he hadn't noticed until now is because he's buzzing with that special electricity that must be written in Tony's genetic code or something).

Tony pulls this ridiculous face that is a miraculous mixture of distress and triumph, which, of course, Loki laughs at. He says, "I hate Thor. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him."

"Don't," Loki pleads a bit weakly, "I do enough of that for both of us."

"But–" Tony starts to snap, cuts himself off so he doesn't say something _too_ offensive before just giving up and growling, "I want him to implode on himself and die, or be erased completely from the universe."

"Tony, that's terrible," Loki scolds, frowning just a bit, "He's not _that_ bad."

(Haha. Loki made a joke, guys.)

"Look at what he did to you!" Tony argues, and then there's this brief, terrifying moment of silence, during which Tony realizes the magnitude of what he just said and Loki tries extra hard (and fails) not to read into what his friend means. Here we go again.

"Am I really so horrible?" Loki asks as neutrally as possible, his tone almost robotic in nature (which is a good thing this time around).

"It's not you _yourself_," Tony sighs, and he's got this _Why do I possess speech?_ look plastered on his face as he attempts to explain himself, "It's what you go through. If it weren't for Thor, you wouldn't be bipolar, and you wouldn't be so depressed and angry all the time, and you wouldn't have to hide in your own house and cry yourself to sleep an-"

"_If it weren't for Thor_, I wouldn't be who I am today, and you most likely wouldn't be my friend," Loki cuts Tony off in a voice so straightforward and confident, he isn't completely sure it's his own, "I'd be an entirely different person if Thor was never in my life. I'd probably be a total asshole."

"Are you saying you aren't already?" Tony jokes, and Loki doesn't even waste his energy getting self-righteous and worked-up. He just lies against Tony and makes a noise that can barely pass for laughter or amusement.

"I get what you're saying," Tony clarifies after a non-awkward beat of stillness, scratching a hand through his hair and yawning softly, "Go on."

Loki pauses, gives Tony an affectionate squeeze and murmurs, "I _adore_ you, you know that?" For some obscure reason, he absolutely _needs_ Tony to know this before he continues.

Tony grins, replies, "I adore you, too."

Loki can almost hear the sonnet dying to come after that declaration (and _really_, he is in no way comparable to a summer's day, even if Tony likes to think he is).

_**Freya's features mold into something sad and tired; an unfitting expression for her always-smiling, always-beautiful face. She asks, "And how do you think Loki feels about that, hm?"**_

_**Thor's brows knit together in indignation as he cries, "Why does it matter? We're **_**angry**_**, and we deserve vengeance!"**_

"That attitude is what ruined me for life," Loki remarks, "That horribly pompous, entitled attitude Thor and Freyr – and even _Freya_ – walked and _still_ walk around with absolutely destroyed me."

"At least you didn't end up like them," Tony muses.

_**There's a pregnant pause then, chock-full of knowing and downright **_**wrongness**_**. Loki has no idea how he's going to live past this very moment, doesn't know why he's not spontaneously combusting or something **_**right the fuck now**_**, because **_**shit**_**, he's crying so **_**hard**_** and his eyes are so **_**red**_** and he feels so **_**weak**_**, but he's barely making a noise and he's holding most of it in and **_**oh God**_**, please let him die. Please have mercy. Please.**_

_**Freya doesn't say anything for a long time. Her bravado breaks down like a dying car engine, gives way to helplessness and a simple loss for what to do. Thor and Freyr smirk and snicker all the way through her slow descent.**_

_**When she can finally bring herself to speak, Freya says, obviously defeated, "No further questions." She retreats back to her lawn chair and plants herself next to Loki's silently weeping, violently shaking form. Loki can just barely hear the whispered barrage of '**_**I'm sorry**_**'s directed his way. He gives Freya no response.**_

_**A slightly triumphant air about him, Freyr rises from his perch to approach Thor. He's an owl, now, ominous and predatory with eyes all around his head. Loki feels Freya take his hand and squeeze it tightly as an icicle of dread pierces his heart, and both children know how royally **_**fucked**_** they are now. With Freya having lost the battle against Thor and Freyr come to play rough, there's pretty much no chance of Loki winning now. As per usual.**_

"_**Mister Skywalker," Freyr starts, just as his sister did, and Loki really fucking **_**hates**_** the way his cousin's cold, clinical voice sends frost beetles crawling up his spine and ice serpents writhing through his innards, "I'm going to be really upfront with you. Is that alright?"**_

_**Thor gives an affirmative smile and replies, "Sure." (Of course.)**_

_**Freyr hints a small smirk, nearly purring when he says, "Wonderful." He stuffs his hands in the deep, baggy pockets of his cargo shorts (which are fucking **_**Tommy Hilfiger**_**, by the way) and takes an incredibly lawyer-like step to the side as he asks, very straightforwardly, "On a scale of one to ten, how aggravating is Loki?"**_

"You _can't_ be serious," Tony groans, a small whine hooking on the end of his statement.

"Believe it or not, I am," Loki sighs. He rubs his chin against Tony's shoulder, says, "It gets worse, so buckle down."

"_**What exactly are you asking me?" Thor rejoins, and just to be clear, he's only doing this so he and Freyr can expand on their already large repertoire of scorn and contemptuousness (wow, what a big word for something so **_**small**_**). **_

_**Freyr's smirk grows just shy of toothy as he elaborates, "In terms of personality, appearance, voice, habits, and everything else, **_**how aggravating is Loki**_**?"**_

"_**Objection!" Freya interjects, "Argumentative!"**_

"_**Overruled," Balder retorts almost immediately.**_

"That was a legitimate objection," Tony interrupts, drawing a quiet, halfhearted sigh out of Loki.

"So? It was practically _prophesized_ that Thor and Freyr were going to win through Balder's bias," Loki replies bitterly, "It didn't matter how rational Freya and I were. It was just about Thor winning."

"_**Answer the question," Freyr demands in a show of mock-authority (which is stupid and unnecessary when everybody **_**knows**_** he's on Thor's side).**_

"_**Twenty-three," is Thor's dreadful reply, and **_**goddamn**_** does Loki just want to punch his brother's freaking teeth out right now.**_

"_**Why do you say that?" Freyr prods, running a hand through his golden hair. It's a redundant question to ask considering that Thor's basically answered it about **_**ten fucking times**_** in **_**ten different ways**_** already.**_

_**Oh well. I guess it's just **_**National Let's Screw Loki Over and Smile While We're Doing It Day**_**.**_

"_**His voice makes me want to scream," Thor pipes, and the tone of his voice is so damn **_**chipper**_** that you could swear he's talking about how pleasant the weather is or something, "And he doesn't look like any of us. He's probably **_**adopted**_** for all we know."**_

**There**_**. That's all it takes for Loki to forget why he's keeping his mouth shut, why he's playing this stupid game to begin with, why he even bothers with manners **_**at all**_**.**_

"_**You **_**ass**_**!" Loki explodes, shooting up like a Jack-in-the-Box and flinging an accusatory finger his brother's way. Fuck **_**decency**_**. Fuck it! If they want Loki to be the bad guy, he'll **_**be**_** the fucking bad guy.**_

_**After all – he **_**always**_** tries to give them what they want. Why should he stop now?**_

"_**How dare you! Wh-who the hell do you think you are?" Loki exclaims, ignoring Freya's helpless pleas for him to **_**calm down**_** and **_**it's okay**_** and **_**stop it, you're making it worse**_**. Thor's face grows red and puffy, almost as if he's **_**shocked**_** that Loki would speak up against the abuse he's doling out (which is understandable when you remember that the younger of the two of them has never done such a thing before).**_

"_**Shut up, Loki!" Thor retorts a bit shakily, straightening his back to make himself look more in control, "We're all thinking the same thing!"**_

"_**I'm not going to **_**shut up**_**!" Loki shrieks, "N-not when **_**you people**_** insist on treating me like dirt!"**_

"_**Freya, you need to **_**calm**_** your **_**client**_**," Freyr cuts in, casting a dark glare on his sister and cousin. Loki shoots Freyr the nastiest look he can muster as Freya makes a hushed, weary noise.**_

"_**Brother, he's hurt," the girl whines, and Loki can't help but redirect his tortured gaze to Freya's face, can't help but desperately try to tell her to **_**shut up shut up shut up**_** with his eyes. Freya refuses to look at him, chooses instead to focus on her twin.**_

"**Freya**_**, **_**calm **_**your **_**client**_**," Freyr reiterates in a hard, clipped tone, fixing his sister with a look that communicates a lot more than it lets on. Loki can almost hear the silent agreement passing between the twins, and it reminds him that **_**yeah**_**, he really **_**is**_** fighting this battle alone.**_

_**Balder emits a quiet whimper as Freyr turns back to Thor with a huff. Freya places a dainty hand on Loki's shoulder, which Loki jerks off like it's burned him.**_

_**Freyr pauses for a particularly tense moment before gesturing to Loki and sighing as if he's oh-so fucking **_**exasperated**_**, "Is this what you were talking about?" Loki twitches with anger.**_

_**Thor barely seems sure of himself when he replies, "Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah." The boy's eyes are focused on the ground, and it's almost painfully apparent how very **_**embarrassed**_** he is now.**_

_**Freyr, however, doesn't seem to share his cousin's sentiments at all. Coldly, he taunts, "Don't tell me you've changed your mind, Thor."**_

"_**Objection," Freya interrupts a bit weakly, and Loki barely resists the urge to snarl at the sound of her voice, "Not a question."**_

_**Before Balder can eject a predictable '**_**Overruled**_**', Freyr snaps, "Withdrawn." He doesn't say anything for a few moments, choosing to simply stare Thor down like the hawk he is.**_

"You like to compare Freyr and Freya to birds, don't you?" Tony notes, his voice soft and raspy with fatigue. Loki smiles at the tone, drops a quick kiss on his friend's scalp (in his book, a sleepy Tony is an adorable Tony).

"They're just really birdlike to me, I suppose," Loki answers, idly carding his fingers through Tony's thick mess of hair and carefully working out any tangles he comes across (which is kind of gross, to be honest, but Loki can't find it in himself to care that much), "Freya's small and perky, and Freyr's just plain daunting."

Tony makes a deep noise of contentment and leans his head into Loki's touch. He mumbles, just a bit distractedly, "Can you just talk and talk and never ever stop? That'd be pretty nice."

Loki hums a laugh, taking Tony's comment as an invitation to continue his story.

_**When Freyr eventually deigns to speak, he says, "No further questions." It vaguely occurs to Loki that **_**oh my God, **_**Freyr's**_** hit a dead end **_**(no thanks to Thor's hesitation) as the boy turns to his sister and prompts, "Your witness."**_

_**Thor scrambles frantically off of the ground upon Freyr's signal to leave, practically **_**hurling**_** himself into his seat as fast as he possibly can. He looks angry, but at what exactly? Loki's not sure.**_

_**No matter, though. Now everybody's staring at Loki, waiting for him to step forward and get obliterated. A heavy silence hangs in the air, thick like butter and charged with electricity. Loki doesn't move.**_

"_**Come on, Keys," Freya eventually urges, "It's **_**our**_** turn."**_

_**Loki turns to level Freya with a look cold enough to frostbite, retorts, "**_**Our**_** turn? Our turn to what? Fail horribly?"**_

"_Oooh_," Tony hums, and Loki's not sure whether the utterance is one of awe or pleasure until the man adds, "Now things are getting _interesting_."

"Were they not before?" Loki asks, stilling his fingers' motions in Tony's hair.

"They were," Tony assures him, "It's just that _now_ you're actually defending yourself. That changes everything." Loki can legitimately _hear_ the period at the end of Tony's sentence, that's how abruptly the man ends it, and he emits a small laugh when Tony's hand comes grasping behind his head like a hungry crocodile, grabs his wrist, and gives it an insistent _tug_.

"Keep doin' that," Tony demands, obviously referring to Loki's unusual method of grooming, "I'm melting here."

Loki obliges to Tony's request, says, "Don't fall asleep, Elphaba."

A low chuckle escapes Tony, and the man replies, "I promise I won't."

_**Freya is at a loss for words, and she helplessly opens and closes her mouth a couple thousand times. Freyr coughs, more to break the incredibly awkward silence than catch anyone's attention.**_

"_**I don't want to play this game anymore," Loki declares when he's sure that nobody's going to speak up or do anything special. He might as well have said '**_**fuck you all, I'm going to Mars**_**', though, because as soon as the words are out of his mouth, everybody (with the exception of Balder, of course) **_**explodes**_**.**_

"_**No, no, no!" Thor howls, jumping up to stomp over to where Loki sits. He clamps his hands down on his brother's shoulders and shakes him, says, "You have to, you have to, you have to!"**_

_**At the same time, Freya's reaching for the collar of Loki's t-shirt and crying, "Loki, **_**please**_**! I-it's not that bad! It'll be okay! It's just a game!"**_

"_**No backing out!" Freyr tries to yell over his sister and cousin, and suddenly, he's right where the action is, leaning over Thor's shoulder and growling, "Only wimps back out."**_

_**Chinook starts to bark his little head off, then, and the sensory overload is enough to bring Loki to tears. He's hyperventilating, now, tangled up in Freya's persistent yanking on his shirt and the nonstop push-pull-push-pulling of Thor, and dear **_**God**_**, what is he going to do now, what is he going to do now, **_**what is he going to do now?**

_**Eyes squinting, mind blanking, and heart pumping, Loki lets out a strangled, helpless cry: "Please, leave me alone!"**_

_**The exclamation fails to compel Thor and his cousins to stop, so Loki repeats it, louder this time.**_

"**Leave me alone!"**

Loki is pretty much forced to pause in his storytelling when Tony deftly and cleverly turns onto his side and hooks him into one of those perfect nut-and-bolt hugs only he can bestow. He doesn't say anything – he just holds Loki in the circle of his arms like he's meant to or something.

After a moment of just lying there, Loki asks, "Tony?"

"I love you," Tony mutters against Loki's shoulder in response, warming the man's skin through the thin fabric of his shirt, "That's all."

Loki chooses not to respond verbally. Instead, he rests his head against Tony's and brings a hand up to rub along his spine. He swallows against the odd but not at all atypical impulse to cry – all the half-repressed negative emotions inside of him are starting to fight their way to the surface after having gong too long without air.

Normally, Loki'd release those feelings around Tony without a second thought, but now? He has to finish this story before he lets them breathe. If he doesn't, well… he'd feel like a proper asshole, he would.

_**Thor, Freyr, and Freya go silent and still like a balloon deflates after Loki's second outcry, and the only sounds in the backyard are the tiny gasps and sobs coming from Loki's throat, Chinook's sharp, ceaseless yapping, and the chirping song of a blackbird. That is, until Loki actually speaks. **_

_**He plans to say something harsh and biting, plans to be the strong one this time, but because he's **_**Loki**_** and the universe just thrives in his constant misfortune, things don't work out that way.**_

"_**Why?" is what ends up coming out of his mouth. The word is broken and defeated, escapes Loki like a trickle of water from a leaky faucet, and it leaves him strangely out of breath.**_

_**For a moment, no one answers Loki's question. Thor, Freyr, and Freya exchange uncertain, slightly guilty glances, but no response comes forth from their lips. Ironically, it's **_**Balder**_** who replies.**_

_**The boy slowly peels his hands away from his face and says, "Because that's the way it is."**_

_**Truer words have never been spoken.**_

"Loki, I'm seriously considering locking you up in here," Tony interrupts in a wounded tone, tightening his arms around said man and shifting his position so that he can look Loki in the face.

"_Shh_," Loki swiftly hushes his friend. He closes his eyes and leans their foreheads together, quietly pleads, "Let me finish this, okay? I'm almost done."

Tony nods silently, and even though Loki can't see the look on the man's face, he can just imagine how _horrible_ it is.

_**Loki lets out a pitiful whine-sigh-sob sort of noise and tears himself from Thor and Freya's grasps. He staggers from the lawn chair on which he sits, briefly falling to his knees as he does, and bolts for the house, Chinook hard on his heels. His tears refuse to stay put, now, and they begin their descent down his cheeks as Freya calls after him and he bursts through the back door.**_

_**Loki comes to a grinding halt as soon as he's in the house. He closes his eyes, breathes like he's had his head underwater for half an hour, and quickly tries of to think of the most secure/secretive/inconspicuous room in the house:**_

_**- The living room is completely out of the question.**_

_**- He and Thor's bedroom, too (it's much too obvious).**_

_**- The bathrooms aren't very comfortable, and people need to use them…**_

_**- The kitchen is full of food, and where food is, children are as well.**_

_**- Father's study is off-limits at all times.**_

_**- Mother and Father's bedroom is pretty much the same when they're not home.**_

_**Loki ultimately goes for Mother and Father's bedroom, simply because it's both forbidden and comforting in the way all parents' bedrooms are. Roughly scrubbing the moisture from his eyes, the boy hauls Chinook into his arms and slip-slides his way to his chosen destination, making sure not to alert Aunt Volla to his presence.**_

_**Loki quietly closes the door behind him, only allowing himself to **_**really**_** start crying when he hears the telltale **_**click**_** of the latch. A symphony of sobs, hiccups, and sighs streams out of him as he crawls into his parents' bed, and he keeps Chinook snugly wrapped in the circle of his arms even as he burrows beneath the blankets and curls into a ball tight enough to make the dog squeak in discomfort.**_

_**He's not angry anymore. Now, he's just disappointed, and scared, and **_**ashamed**_**. How could he let something like that happen to him? How could his **_**family**_** hurt him so? And why would they? And why **_**him**_**? There are always too many questions and never enough answers (which is to be expected, of course).**_

_**Loki cries until he can't cry anymore, eventually slipping into a turbulent, fitful sleep.**_

"The end?" Tony asks a bit hopefully. Loki knows that the man isn't being rude or disinterested, knows that Tony only wants this story to be over just as much as he does.

"Not quite," Loki sighs. (This sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

_**Loki wakes about an hour later to find the sun much lower in the sky, Chinook gone, and the house a great degree louder. He listens to the clamoring voices coming from down the hallway, and the half-asleep, logical portion of his brain tells him that **_**oh**_**, the rest of his family has come home now.**_

_**Dammit.**_

_**Loki is shoving his upper body off of the mattress when the door opens, and his eyes immediately land on those of his mother. He gasps, almost as an afterthought.**_

"_**Loki?" Frigga asks, and Loki takes in the lightness with which she carries herself and the smile plastered on her face, so easy and **_**free**_** it almost hurts to look at in his sadness.**_

"_**Momma…" is the only thing Loki can manage to say before he's choking up, bowing his head, and rubbing at his eyes. Frigga drops the purse on her shoulder to the ground and makes her way over to the bed, her face contorting in confusion.**_

"_**What's the matter, darling?" she asks, bending at the waist and making an anxious attempt to meet her son's eyes. Her perfect smile disappears, gives way to a faintly distraught grimace, and Loki just absolutely **_**hates**_** himself for putting a frown on her face.**_

_**Loki parts his lips to speak, but it's nearly impossible for him to articulate the jumble of thoughts and feelings in his head at the moment. He groans abortively and raises his gaze to Frigga's, vainly hoping that she'll understand his failure to communicate.**_

_**Frigga's expression quickly turns into one of alarm. She hastily takes a seat on the edge of the mattress and asks, "Why are you all alone? Have you been crying?"**_

_**Loki sniffs, his eyes beginning to burn with tears once more, and he replies to his mother's second question with a simple, "Mm-hmm." **_

_**He wriggles his way out from under the quilt, crawls over to Frigga, and practically throws himself into her lap like a baby seal on a snowdrift. That's when the floodgates open again, and then he's just **_**lying**_** against his mother and soiling her gorgeous, **_**gorgeous**_** sundress with his wretched tears. Here he is **_**again**_**, running to mommy because he can't hack it on his own.**_

"_**Oh, no!" Frigga cries, carefully taking Loki's small body into her arms and clutching him tightly to her chest, "What happened, love?"**_

_**Burying his face in Frigga's shoulder, Loki chokes out, "I don't wanna be here anymore."**_

Tony makes a pained noise of distress and presses closer to Loki, who's staring a hole into the ashtray on the nightstand and trying so very hard not to break the fuck _down_ at the moment.

_**Frigga doesn't say anything for a few moments, just holds Loki close and rubs a comforting hand against his back. Her voice is quiet and rueful when she replies, "**_**I**_** want you to be here. I love you."**_

_**His mother's words both warm Loki's heart and intensify his tears, and Loki winds his arms around her neck to ground himself, to tell her that he loves her back without saying a word.**_

"_**Did your cousins upset you?" Frigga questions in a hushed, careful tone. When Loki nods, she adds, "Thor, too?" Loki nods again, and the sigh that comes out of his mother is nothing short of disappointed.**_

"_**Look," Frigga huffs, pulling Loki away a bit so that she can see his face, "I'm not going to make you tell me just what happened yet, but I want you to know that **_**whatever**_** they did to you doesn't have to mean a thing as long as you don't let it, Loki. Do you understand that?"**_

_**Here's the thing: Loki understands Frigga **_**just fine**_**. Putting that kind of thing into practice, though? Easier said than done.**_

_**But instead of saying all that (doing so would be kind of difficult right now when he's got eyes full of tears and a throat constricted with sobs), Loki nods yet again to express his acknowledgment.**_

_**Frigga smiles softly at the gesture, and she leans forward to drop a loving kiss on Loki's cheek. Loki lets a soft, comforted sigh escape him as Frigga asks, "Now, how about we get some food in that stomach of yours and forget about this for awhile?"**_

_**Loki's initial reaction to his mother's suggestion is less than positive; getting food means going into the kitchen, and going into the kitchen means going into the living room, and going into the living room means having to confront Odin and Thor and Freyr and Freya and Balder and Uncle Tyr and Aunt Zisa and Aunt Sol and Aunt Volla and **_**oh God**_**, why, why, **_**why**_**?**_

_**Loki's apprehension must show on his face or something, because suddenly Frigga's steeling his confidence by kissing his cheeks once more and saying, "I'm here, darling. I'm not going to leave you all alone."**_

_**That's pretty much all it takes for Loki to give in. After wiping his eyes and sniffing quite vigorously, the boy lets Frigga raise him up and carry him down the hallway. He won't feel better for the rest of the day, or the rest of the week, or the rest of the whole damn **_**summer**_** for that matter.**_

"You know how people say _whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger_?" Loki asks a bit hoarsely. He's clinging to Tony now, digging his chin into the man's shoulder and refusing to look away from the nightstand.

"Yeah," Tony murmurs in reply, moving his lips against Loki's temple in a way so perfect it _kills_ him.

"It's bullshit," Loki croaks, letting his eyes slide closed in his fatigue and disgrace. You know that feeling that's like heartburn in the way it ignites a flame in your chest and makes you all hot in the most unpleasant ways, that emotion called _shame_? It's making a nest between Loki's lungs right now, and _fuck_ does it hurt, does it _burn_, does it have him panting ugly little breaths against Tony's neck like he's a sick dog or something.

To some people – a _lot_ of people – Loki has indeed grown stronger in his independence and fierce personality. Sometimes, Loki even agrees with them. But, when he's being completely honest with himself, Loki knows that he's only weakened after years of enduring this nonsense. This is how it works:

It starts with inferiority, which I'm going to say is the metaphorical root of the tree that is Loki. Then there are external factors to consider, like the longstanding abuse Thor and his cousins have dealt him, Odin's habitual ignorance of him, Frigga's near-oppressive defensiveness where he's concerned, and the pressure of being a poor little rich boy with the strange affliction people like to call '_heart'_. Throw in a crazy variable like a potentially fatal car accident and even more weird things start to appear in this equation, like bipolar disorder and a refusal to take medicine and random suicidal thoughts and an inability to _trust_ people. This tree starts to shrivel up and dry out now, because even though the rain is his friend, he's too scared of it to even accept its help, and even though he's the perfect home for so many, he'd rather be alone than share himself, even if would make everybody (including _him_) happy. Do you get what I'm saying?

Building walls around himself has gotten Loki absolutely _nowhere_ for the past decade, and there's nothing strong or admirable about being a human prison, is there?

"Are you finished?" Tony asks when Loki says nothing further.

"Yeah," Loki sighs, gingerly rolling out of Tony's embrace and sitting up. He presses his palms against his eyes and feels wetness there, which he starts to scrub at like a stain that won't come out.

Tony follows him avidly, scoots along the mattress so that he's facing Loki at an angle. Loki pulls his hands away from his face to look at his friend, and his eyes, red and itchy with tears, don't say much more than _Hey there, you_ and _Thanks for listening to my horrible story_. Tony frowns.

"That was terrible," the man says, scratching his temple like he does when he needs a cigarette.

"I told you it wouldn't be a fairy tale," Loki retorts a bit roughly. He attempts to soften his words with a smile, but the expression is obviously forced and dripping with something far beyond sadness, something both he and Tony can see and feel.

Tony's face darkens for a moment, and he groans softly, sighs, "I don't want to say _I'm sorry_, because that wouldn't really help you at all…"

"You don't have to say anything," Loki cuts in, sniffing wetly, "I'm just glad you listened."

Tony lips curl into a small, sheepish smirk as he replies, "That's what I'm here for." The comment both lifts Loki's spirits and upsets him further; ain't that a bitch?

After a long stretch of silence, in which Tony watches Loki with his perpetually puppy-like gaze and continues to scrabble away at his temple, Loki concedes, "It wasn't all bad."

Tony blinks, a flash of confusion dashing across his sharp features as he asks, "What?"

"Back then," Loki clarifies, waving his hand in an abortive sort of gesture. He lowers his eyes to the mattress and says, "We had fun, too."

"_Like_?" Tony prompts, and when Loki glances up at the man, he's giving him this adorably hopeful grin and goading, "What kind of fun?"

Loki pauses for a moment and lets his mind wander, scours his memory for something somewhat amusing to soothe the ache of less-than-pleasant recollections.

"Well, there was this one Halloween when we all dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz," Loki recalls, propping his elbows up on his knees and cradling his chin in his hands, "Freya was Dorothy, I was Toto…"

"I bet Thor was the lion, wasn't he?" Tony interjects, and this time, Loki actually allows himself to smile at the man's habit of interrupting him.

"No, sir," he rejoins, shaking his head, "He was the Scarecrow. _Balder_ was the Cowardly Lion, which was fitting because…" Loki hesitates, his smile turning into something prickly and sly. "I don't know if you could tell, but Balder is kind of a pussy."

Tony shrugs offhandedly and snorts, "Yeah, it was a little obvious."

Loki huffs a halfhearted laugh, lets out a small, almost feline yawn. He swiftly picks up where he left off with, "Freyr was the Tin Man."

"He has no heart," Tony notes in the most deadpan voice possible, and that statement alone is enough to make Loki hide his face in his hands and laugh like a self-conscious schoolgirl who's just been kissed for the very first time.

"Oh, the irony!" he crows, peeking through the cage of his fingers at Tony.

Tony smirks, reaches forward to grab Loki's wrists and remove his hands from his face. The man kneads Loki's palms with his thumbs and doesn't say anything, just watches the other like it's completely normal and polite to just sit and _gawk_ at him (which it is, in the context of their relationship).

"Then there was the night Thor and I decided to watch _A Nightmare on Elm Street_," Loki goes on, his eyes lidding almost involuntarily, "It was really dark when we did, and we were watching this thing at like, one o'clock in the morning." He glances up at Tony and quirks an inquisitive brow at him, asks, "You know that birch tree behind the house, the one right outside the window in the living room?"

Tony's brows knit together at the question, and Loki can practically _hear_ the gears turning in his friend's head (and _really_, Tony's uncertainty is totally understandable when you consider the fact that every time he's been to Loki's childhood home, it's been supremely late at night and he's been seriously, _seriously_ ill).

Eventually, Tony lets out a nervous laugh and replies, "Sorry, but not really."

Loki shakes his head dismissively and gives a glib, airy smile, nearly murmuring as he recounts, "Well, we were at the part where Freddy is calling Nancy, right?" Tony nods. "All of a sudden, _that _tree knocked against the window _so damn hard_, and Thor and I just fucking _exploded_ because of it."

Tony's face splits into an impulsive grin as he asks, "What did you _do_?"

"We_ ran_," Loki replies, a chuckle hooking at the end of his answer, "And what made this whole thing so memorable was the fact that we were both screaming at the top of our lungs and pushing each other down while we tried to get the hell out of the house, or at least out of the living room."

"Did you go very far?" Tony inquires, absentmindedly bringing one of Loki's hands up to his face and pressing the man's palm against his jaw. Loki brushes his thumb along the crest of Tony's cheek, watches how the gesture makes his friend's eyes go all soft and dark like melted chocolate. He smiles.

"No," is Loki's response, "Thor and I were only inches out of the living room when our legs magically locked together. Mother and Father woke up to find us in a tangled heap on the floor, crying and laughing like we were losing our minds."

Tony opens his mouth to speak, but Loki cuts him off (unintentionally, of course) as another memory comes to him. He tenses, notes, "Then there was that time we got candle wax and blood on the ceiling."

Tony's expression morphs into something hilarious and bewildered, and he questions, "How the hell did _that_ happen?"

"It was the day after the fourth of July and we had extra firecrackers," Loki laughs, dragging his hand down to Tony's neck and mimicking the smirk getting thrown his way, "Thor thought that lighting the things with taper candles, in _our bedroom_, would be a _wonderful_ idea."

"Why are you not _dead_ or seriously disabled?" Tony asks, a touch of humor evident in his voice. He quickly and carefully studies every patch of exposed skin he can find on Loki, searching for an old scar or something similar to one (doing so is a bit unnecessary, though; Tony's seen Loki stripped down to his underwear more than a couple of times, so the chances of him having not seen such a blemish on his friend is unlikely, to say the least).

Loki cocks his chin up as a sarcastic, almost bitter nod to God or the Fates or whatever other cloud-sitting, life-governing, supremely holy being there may be out there, answers, "Thor got the brunt of the damage. We had to take him to the hospital for second-degree burns on his hands."

"And you?" Tony asks, angling his head towards Loki.

Loki drums a playful beat against the side of Tony's neck with his fingers, drawing a brief laugh out of his friend, and replies, "My fingertips got singed, but I was pretty okay."

"_Obviously_," Tony says with just the right amount of snark and playfulness. He whines softly in protest when Loki pulls his hand away from his throat, but the sound is empty and meaningless when he's still holding Loki's other hand captive.

Loki yawns, leans forward as if seeking a kiss from Tony, but the two friends just end up bumping foreheads and cackling at the awkwardness. Their laughter is wanton and syrupy, a minor result of fatigue and the basic, almost animal need to be close and make merry, so to speak.

"You're _weird_," Tony chuckles, placing his hands on Loki's upper arms and forcibly tugging him closer.

"I _am_, aren't I?" Loki retorts without much heat. He pushes weakly against the insides of Tony's elbows, only to give up his struggle when the man presses a firm, sloppy kiss against his jaw.

Tony makes an odd, weary noise of contentment and transforms his single kiss into a relentless barrage of smacks and pecks, scatters them all over Loki's face and neck like he's making art or something. Every now and then he'll pause to breathe, say in a voice so sugary it legitimately makes Loki _nauseous_, "_I love you_," before continuing to construct his masterpiece of sorts.

Eventually, when Loki's just about _lying_ on top of Tony and growing tired of ignoring the warmth swelling in the pit of his stomach (because _really_, while the sensation is pretty pleasant for the most part, it wouldn't be smart for Loki to dwell on it when it has such influence over his behavior), he finds himself announcing, without pretense, "I think one of the happiest nights of my life was the one before the accident."

Tony freezes, his mouth hovering over Loki's chin. He locks eyes with the man, asking without words '_Are you okay, or should I get the __**fuck**__ off of this thin ice before it shatters beneath my feet?_'.

Loki just smirks sleepily and whispers, "I'm fine." He tilts his chin up until Tony's lips are smushed against it, sighs softly when his friend turns such a peculiar situation into a proper kiss.

After a long stretch of nonverbal interaction, which mainly consists of Tony keeping on his incessant wooing and Loki playing a game of mental hopscotch, Loki makes yet another outburst.

"It was a Wednesday night," he says, the end of his statement turning into a hiss-purr as Tony sucks a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"We're talking about this?" Tony questions in a soft, almost reluctant tone. Loki knows that Tony's afraid of bringing him _there_ again, to that place where he's alone and unreachable and drowning in a pool of his own tears, and you know what? He absolutely _adores_ the man for that.

"_Yeah_, we're talking about this," he replies, letting his head fall forward onto Tony's shoulder as a yawn drags its way out of him. He allows his heavy eyelids to fall shut, jumps right into his narrative with, "Thor was sneaking out of the house to go to some party with Clint and Steve."

"You knew Clint and Steve in high school?" Tony interjects, relocating his hands to Loki's sides.

"_Mm-hmm_," Loki hums, drowsy and lethargic, "Steve moved to here from Kansas in my sophomore year, and Thor met Clint when they were freshmen." He huffs a bitter laugh. "I hated them with a burning passion."

"Are you implying that you don't anymore?" Tony asks. His voice is carefully neutral, so much that it almost pisses Loki off (especially because he knows _why_ Tony's speaking in such a cautious manner).

"I still do," Loki admits without shame (wow, what a _dick_), "I'm just better at managing that hatred now."

Tony snorts, "_Really_? Now I'm almost scared to ask about what you did with _that hatred_ back then."

"Oh, _Lord_," Loki groans, weakly digging his fist against Tony's ribs, "I wasn't _that_ bad. Every other week I'd get really fed up with their shit and take it out on Thor, but that's about it."

"A_ha_," is Tony's dispassionate response. Loki resists the urge to start an argument with his friend (which isn't too hard considering how fucking _tired_ he is).

"Anyways," he sighs, backtracking to where he left off, "Thor was sneaking out. It was around midnight when he was attempting to do this, and earlier that day we had both gotten in a lot of trouble for breaking the back door."

Tony's face contorts in shock and bemusement as he echoes, "You _broke_ a fucking _door_?"

This is one of those moments when Loki realizes just how idiosyncratic his life truly is. _Normal_ people don't get _candle wax _and _blood_ on ceilings or break _doors_ or carry on with their _best friends_ like libertine fools or deliberately _torture_ themselves on a daily basis.

"_Accidentally_, of course," Loki clarifies, "It's a glass door, and we were throwing shit around like the teenagers we were."

"Did you throw a goddamn _Oscar_ at the door?" Tony asks, his mouth curling into a pleased grin. He bows his head and nudges his nose against Loki's temple like an anxious dog, gently squeezing the man's sides as he does.

"It was a book that broke it," Loki rejoins, gives his hand a flippant little wave, "Thor was aiming for me, but I had no intention of being hit with a tome bigger than my own fucking head." He cuts his gaze to Tony. "Can I tell you my story now?"

"Go ahead, man," Tony laughs.

Loki closes his eyes once more with a sigh, takes a short pause to regain his train of thought before he says, "I, uh… I didn't want to let Thor get away, mostly because I'm a bitter, spiteful person, but also because I was tired of him leaving me alone while he went off to have fun with everybody else."

"I'm assuming you acted on those feelings," Tony hums.

"I _did_," Loki replies, his voice a quiet, melodic murmur, "I told Thor that I was going to scream like a banshee and notify both Steve and Clint's parents of their 'extracurricularactivities' if he took one step out of the house. That's when he did something _ridiculous_."

"What's that?" Tony urges in a slightly amused tone.

Loki cracks a clever eye open at his friend, proclaims as if speaking of a hard-earned trophy or a prize of some sort, "He offered to take me with him."

Tony's eyes grow to the size of saucers at Loki's declaration, and while his reaction is just a tad melodramatic, it's reasonable when you consider just how _amazing_ and _rare_ Thor's generosity really is (Thor? Being _nice_? _Get out_.). The man lets out a nervous laugh and splutters, "He _did_ that?"

Loki nods his admission, a small, almost unwilling smile tugging at his lips. He explains, "At first, I didn't believe him. It was when he slung me over his shoulder and tried to _throw_ me out the _window_ that I knew he was serious."

Tony laughs again, more freely this time, and asks, "What happened then?"

"First, we managed to get out of the house without waking Mother and Father," Loki answers with a yawn, "Then we got in Clint's car and took off." He pauses, chuckling softly. "I was absolutely _terrified_."

"Nothing bad happened, right?" Tony questions.

"No," Loki retorts, sitting up so that he can stretch a bit, "We picked up Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff…" He stops and grins for a moment when Tony gives an incredulous snort. "… and we went to this golf course and drank bad alcohol all night. I don't know why I enjoyed it all so much, but I did."

"Maybe it's because you were doing it with Thor," Tony muses. He tilts his head in a somewhat canine fashion, smirks in that knowing-yet-smug way he can.

"Probably," Loki concedes, glancing away from Tony's face and stifling the surge of discomfort and infatuation inside him, "Plus, Steve was really nice, and Wanda and Natasha talked with me a whole lot. I actually felt like I had friends, for once."

"You didn't have any friends in high school?" Tony asks, and the way his face immediately takes on a sheepish, hangdog expression shows just how impulsive and clumsy his question is. Loki doesn't take those words to heart, though.

"I had _one_, but he's gone, now," Loki replies a bit coolly. Tony raises an inquisitive eyebrow at him, which Loki quickly deals with by cupping the man's jaws and pressing a firm kiss to his lips. It takes Tony a moment to return the gesture, but it's obvious that he understands what Loki means by it.

"I'm sorry," Tony mumbles against Loki's mouth when the man breaks the kiss, and Loki lets out a muted, easy laugh in response.

"It's okay," he assures Tony, "I'll tell you about that later, when I'm not such a zombie."

Tony nods silently in assent, but the guilty look on his face refuses to disappear. Loki cautiously chooses to ignore it (mostly because trying to get rid of it would only make things worse, and Lord knows he's not in the mood for anymore drama tonight).

"All that sweetness and light didn't last for long, though," Loki notes, subconsciously hoping that changing the subject will distract Tony (this topic isn't much happier, to be honest, but at least it's not something Tony will feel bad for), "The next night, when Thor and I were in the emergency room, I didn't see Steve and Clint at all, and Wanda and Natasha were in my room for one second and totally gone the next." He scowls deeply at the memory, contrite and bitter with old heartbreak. "And they wonder why I can't look at them straight."

Tony is tight-lipped and puppy-eyed, now, and Loki feels a dull pang of guilt for speaking ill of the man's friends (even if he knows that Tony would choose him over all but one of them any day). He forces a smile onto his face, says, "Whatever. That's just the way things happened, I guess."

"They could be different, though," Tony argues in hushed tone, his eyes hard and solemn. This right here is something that Loki avoids like the plague, simply because it invariably manages to upset both him _and_ Tony, oftentimes with each other.

Have you ever wondered why Loki and Tony, when together, spend most of their time alone? Sure, the isolation _is_ pretty convenient when you consider the fuckton of sexual tension between them, but that by itself really isn't the primary motivator behind their exclusivity.

You see, Loki kind of-sort of-_really_ _**hates**_ most of Tony's friends, and Tony is kind of-sort of-_really_ _**different**_ when he's around those assholes. It's almost impossible for the two of them to agree over people like Steve and Clint and Natasha, so they've gotten to the point where they don't even try to. Well, _Loki_ has.

"But they're _not_," Loki snaps, and before Tony can start ranting about how Steve has a beautiful soul and how Wanda is actually a great friend to have, he says, "What time is it? I need to go home."

That's all it takes for Tony to forget about the rest of the world. A mildly horrified expression plants itself on the man's face as he exclaims, "No!"

Loki's heart softens a bit at Tony's earnest reaction. He exhales deeply, sighing, "I have to, Tony."

"_Whyyy?_" Tony whines, and while the tone of his voice is humorous in its silliness, the look on his face isn't at all. It's times like these when Loki finds it extremely hard to look at his friend, because doing so would have him in tears from the hurt and the _loneliness_ he sees there.

"I have a paper I need to finish writing," Loki replies, smiling sadly, "Fenrir needs me. And you know I can't leave the house alone with Thor."

"But, _Loki_," Tony snarls, desperate and miserable, and suddenly, he's pulling said man into his lap and into his arms, clinging to him like he'd most certainly _die_ if he didn't. Loki lets a helpless noise flee him as he returns Tony's embrace, kisses his friend's forehead in a vain attempt to comfort him. That's when Tony says something absolutely _awful_.

"Can't you just stay for the night?" the man asks, assaulting Loki with _those eyes_, the ones deep enough to _drown_ in and hot enough to _melt_ you, "_I_ need you."

Oh _God_.

Loki's smile turns bitter at Tony's words, and he shakes his head, says, "You don't need me."

"_Really_?" Tony retorts, his expression souring, "Then why is it so hard for me to sleep these days? And why do I feel like I'm breaking bones every time I watch you leave? Tell me that, won't you?"

"Tony, _no_," Loki moans, shaking his head once more and framing the man's face with his hands. He presses his forehead against Tony's, fighting back the urge to weep as he cries, "You can't tell me things like that!"

"But it's the truth," Tony laments, tightening his arms around Loki in an obvious show of possessiveness. Loki can feel Tony's breath hitting his lips like tiny monsoons, and the sensation scares the _shit _out of him, makes him want to run away and hide from his _friend_, this man he loves _so much_ that he'd break his fucking heart time after time just so that he can put it back together again.

"But it hurts," Loki gasps, his eyes stinging with tears. He's struggling in Tony's grip, now, trying to escape so that he can _breathe_ or _think_ or _function_ like a normal human being.

"But you're hurting _me_!" Tony counters, and the exclamation is enough to pull a sob out of Loki, to have him crying those precursory, baby tears that usually precede an all-out bawlfest, complete with tomato-face and snot waterfalls (wasn't that a _beautiful_ mental image?).

"I'm sorry," Loki whimpers, quiet and anxious, moving his hands to the nape of Tony's neck and brushing his fingers through the hair there, "I _love_ you. I do. But I _have_ to go home."

Tony doesn't say anything for a long time. He just _sits_ there, holding onto Loki like a lifeline and staring deep into his pale eyes. Loki knows what he's doing, knows that his friend is simply trying to lose himself in his odd shade of green and the warmth radiating off of him before he has to get by with nothing more than his imagination and an empty bed. And you know what?

Loki's trying to do it, _too_, for once. Part of him is seriously dreading the moment he lays down to sleep tonight, simply because he knows how very _difficult _such an endeavor will be. Tony's never kept him from his dreams before, but something in the way the man's touched him for the past hour or two has Loki feeling incredibly wakeful. Dammit.

When Tony finally speaks, he's murmuring, "I love you, too." The _I'm sorry_ and _I understand_ and _It's okay_ there goes unsaid, but definitely not unnoticed. No, no. Loki can hear those words loud and clear, can see them written plainly in Tony's eyes.

Loki and Tony carefully, _painfully_ detangle themselves from one another, and it's when they're not in physical contact that Loki realizes that he's spent the majority of his visit with his hands on Tony or Tony's hands on him. It almost feels _wrong_ to not be touching his friend now (_friend_, _**ha**_).

Then there's the slow-but-fast process from the bed to the door, during which Loki grabs his shoes and his CD (dear _Lord_) and Tony makes a valiant yet largely unsuccessful attempt to pull himself together. Too soon, Tony's opening the door for Loki, and Loki is stuck standing between the exit and the one he loves, trying to decide whether he's making a mistake, what the hell a mistake_ is_, and if there's even a mistake to be made here.

"I guess this is goodnight," Tony says. His voice is surprisingly even, but Loki can easily pick up the tiny cracks in it, can see the raw sorrow in the man's eyes. And he fucking _hates_ himself for it. He really does.

But instead of showing all that, Loki gives Tony a smile, one he knows makes the man's heart beat just a little bit faster, and softly replies, "Goodnight, love."

Tony slowly returns the smile, and before either of them know it, they're laughing freely, leaning towards each other and kissing as if they're saying _hello_ instead of _goodbye_. And it hurts like heaven, it does.

It takes a few prolonged moments for Loki and Tony to part, but when they do, their actions aren't in vain. One last kiss and then Loki is off, hurrying out to his car on nimble, rhythmic feet.

It's when Loki's pulling out of Tony's driveway that he chances a glance at the man's front door, where he can see Tony _still_ standing there, his silhouette framed by the light coming from the inside of his house. He looks like an angel.

Loki cries all the way home.

* * *

**This be the end of the first part. Again, I'm sorry for how long this took, and I hope the next part will not be such a hassle to generate. I would like to say that school is definitely not as much of a bitch as I anticipated it to be; isn't it funny that eight grade was like hell to go through when ninth grade looks like it'll be smooth sailing? Anyways, that just means that writing will not be too difficult for me to do.**

**I'd like to make a note about the chapter title and how this idea came to me. Basically, I was listening to a lot of Elton John and decided to take a walk down memory lane with him as my soundtrack artist. Yep. **_**He's **_**who's the CD Tony gave to Loki, and each memory was inspired in some way, big or small, by one of his songs. Generic and cliché, I know. Anyways, the first memory was based off of **_**Bennie and the Jets**_**, and the second one was **_**I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues**_**.**

**Also, there's something that's been nagging at me as I've been writing **_**Brothers**_**. I'm sure you guys have noticed the cliquey-ness of the characters, and how I've been making references to Marvel, right? Well, one of the biggest things that's gotten my attention is something that might seem confusing and/or off to you guys: Why isn't Tony friends with all of the "Avengers" like they are with each other? And if that **_**does**_** bother you, I'm going to take a moment to explain my reasoning:**

**1. **_**He is not a football player or part of that crowd.**_** That's the main reason, actually. He doesn't like the football scene, and so many "Avengers" are part of that (Steve, Thor, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, Wanda). See?**

**2. **_**He is, at the risk of sounding stupid, a ~rebel without a cause~. **_**He's crazy and doesn't conform. Most of the "Avengers" don't really care for that kind of behavior.**

**3. **_**He's always read as an outsider to me.**_** I don't know why, but to me, Tony has never seemed like any of the other Avengers; in both canon and this verse, but especially in canon. Maybe it's because I read a whole lot more into his character than into the others', **_**buuuut**_**, he doesn't fit in to me (that isn't necessarily a bad thing). Most of the Avengers are outright and wholeheartedly heroic and "Let's go fucking save people!", while Tony seems to be more self-interested and heroic on a personal instead of a general level. He's intuitive and in touch with himself, and the other Avengers are more… open and blatantly unfamiliar with their needs, if that makes any sense. I don't know. Basically, Tony feels like an outsider in canon, so I made him an outsider in this verse. This is actually kind of a funny reason, because most people see Bruce in the outcast position.**

**Reviews are very much appreciated, lovelies. I'm also very open to new ideas, so don't be afraid to step on that soapbox.**

**- Gabi.**


	15. Help

**Title:** Help.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~5,800  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Kitty Pryde, Charles Xavier, Kurt Wagner.  
**Warnings:** AU. Nothing too bad, aside from Troll!Kurt being a troll.  
**Summary:** Thor is going to him for his _intelligence_, and suddenly, everything is all aglow with beauty and light, and Loki feels so wonderfully wide awake, and Kitty's actually not that bad to be so close to, because _hot damn_ – Thor is a _dumbass _and Loki is actually better than him at something. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** Well, I think I'm going to start out by saying you might be a tad bit disappointed by this chapter. It's not a monster like the last two were, but uhm… there will be little baby steps like these all throughout the verse. Also, I did go back and edit all the previous chapters (save the last two), and two significant changes I made were: Steve's girlfriend is Peggy, not Sharon, and Kurt is now part of the library staff. That's pretty much it for now. Enjoy.

* * *

He and Kitty are trying to fix one of the computers in the lab for the fifteen millionth time. It's the machine all the way in the back and right next to the window, and it's been crashing almost every other afternoon for a whole damn week. Loki kind of wants to take a crowbar to it at this point.

"Do you think it's a virus?" Kitty asks from where she's bent over his shoulder, and while her curiosity/voice/demeanor is usually incredibly endearing to Loki, he's having a hard time not screaming at her due to a lack of sleep and his aggravation towards this _fucking_ computer. Loki sighs.

"I don't see how it could be with all the antivirus software we have on this thing," he replies, glaring just shy of murderously at the progress bar floating on the screen. _God_, he hates old technology.

Kitty makes a soft noise of assent and moves to reach around Loki, and it's all he can do to not slap her hand away or snap at the poor girl when she questions, "Can I try something?"

"Have fun," he grumbles in reply. Kitty shoots him a brief, concerned look that he easily deflects by staring off into the middle-distance and turning into a human thundercloud.

Don't worry, Kitty. Loki's just on his period.

About five minutes later, the two of them are making noises that sound a whole lot like a couple of seals dying on a patch of ice, all because the computer decided to crash _again_.

"Son of a _bitch_," Loki snarls, aiming a rather belligerent kick at the hard drive beneath the desk. Coincidentally, Professor Xavier wheels his way into the computer lab just as the swear leaves his mouth, and suddenly Kitty's face is all red and Loki really hates his life and the universe and everything about everything. _Fuck._

There go his good standings with his boss. Look at them run. They're even waving him _goodbye_.

Instead of scolding him, though, Professor X emits a low, pleased laugh and rolls on over to where Loki and Kitty are tangled up in the monster computer. He angles his head towards the machine, says, "I can empathize, Loki."

Loki really doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing, opting to just _stare_ at his boss, who probably knows that he's the most awkward, unpleasant person on the face of the earth now, like a goddamn idiot. _Thanks_, insomnia.

"I'm considering just throwing this thing out," Professor X goes on with a slightly rueful sigh, leaning back in his wheelchair, "It's ancient."

"Can we, like, have a funeral for it?" Kitty asks, _finally_ pulling away from Loki and running a hand through her thick hair. She turns to face Professor X, a characteristically bashful smile blooming across her face as she does. "And buy flowers and stuff?"

"Can we burn it?" Loki interjects, and _goddamn_, why is he so fucking _awful_ today? Of course, his sleeplessness could count as a somewhat valid reason for his dreadfulness, and his unpleasant episode with Thor this morning (the man refused to wake up until Loki dragged him halfway out of his bed by his ankles, and you can just about imagine how _that_ went over) coupled with the fact that the world seems just a bit darker without Tony there to constantly brighten it up also justifies his shitty mood, if only just slightly. But still. All of that really isn't an excuse for acting like the bitchiest bitch in the universe.

But, the world must take a little pity on him (for once), because Professor X laughs again, muses, "A funeral pyre! Excellent idea!"

And then Kitty and Professor X are just laughing so goddamn _sweetly_ that Loki wants to kick himself in the mouth, because _no_, he didn't mean it that way, and his stupid, _stupid_ mood won't let him laugh along with them, and nothing is funny, and sometimes, he'll wonder why he's allowed to breathe around people so much more beautiful and happy than himself. _Gosh_.

Just as Loki begins to contemplate thoughts of losing himself in cold medication as soon as he gets home, Professor X draws his attention with a chuckled, "Oh, Loki! You have a visitor waiting for you in the front."

Loki glances up from where he was studying the carpet, green eyes faintly inquisitive as he asks, "Yeah?" We all know who he's hoping this _visitor_ is, don't we? (Really. Is it not fairly obvious?)

A jolt of disappointment hits him when Professor X replies, "It's your brother. He said it was…" He pauses, hints a minute, amused smile. "… _important_."

Well, then. This is odd, to say the least. Thor has _never_ come to the library to see Loki (he's never come to the library _at all_, really).

Loki rolls his eyes and outright _scoffs_ despite himself, getting to his feet with a troubled sort of sigh. "Knowing him, this is probably going to be ridiculous," he groans, and when Professor X and Kitty laugh yet _again_ at his totally non-humorous comment, he kind of wants to kill himself (manic episode, anyone?).

"I've never met your brother before, Loki," Kitty announces as she trails Loki on his way out of the computer lab, Professor X rolling along right after her.

"And aren't you lucky?" Loki retorts with about a gallon of sarcasm. He softens his comment with a miniscule smirk aimed Kitty's way, and the girl rewards him with a downright _adorable_ grin. She moves to hook her arm with his in an almost unsettling show of _friendship_ (ew, what's that?), and Loki has to remind himself how to be civil before he accidentally shoves her to the ground or something. Wow, he's ugly.

"But, really!" Kitty cries, leaning into Loki's side enough to make the man bite the inside of his mouth and pray for mercy, "I'd like to meet Thor! Formally!"

"Give the girl what she wants, Loki," Professor X chimes in from behind them, "I'm sure Thor isn't _that_ bad."

Now, this is one of those moments where Loki's chosen course of action will speak volumes about who he is as a person, much like how your reactions to Rorschach tests supposedly determine your frame of mind. Loki pauses before formulating his response, foolishly thinking that some higher power might be paying attention to him this very second, counting on him to say something selfless or suffer the consequences.

But who are we kidding, right? _Nobody_ cares about what Loki has to say, least of all a _deity_.

"You don't have to live with him," he counters a bit brusquely as he and Kitty stroll into the foyer. His eyes immediately land on his brother, so out-of-place and uncomfortable in such a setting as a library. And _fuck_, if Thor doesn't look like a giant bundle of unease and muscle and stupidity.

Ladies and gentlemen, Loki's brother. His blood. His relative. They share DNA and stuff.

"Heya…" Thor greets him hesitantly, and to be honest, this is the most timid Loki's ever seen his brother in his life. Seriously. It's almost scary, not to mention _ridiculous_ considering that this is only a _library_, and it's not like one of Thor's popular friends is going to fly out of nowhere with a camera and a microphone.

"Hi," is Loki's slightly gauche reply. He and Thor just kind of stare at each other for a few seconds (Jesus Christ, how fucking _awkward_ can you get?) before Loki remembers that Kitty's a miniature powder keg at his side and Professor X is watching them like some kind of referee from the information desk. Uhm.

"Thor, this is Kitty," Loki proclaims without preamble, smiling a tight little smile and nodding to the hobbit beside him.

And then Kitty's hand is shooting out like a fucking cobra to shake Thor's, and Thor is staring at her with this expression that makes Loki want to shrivel up and _die_ (it's the most awful combination of condescension and awe, and you've probably all seen it before if you've ever had an easily-accessible idol in the vein of Thor), and the man is saying, "Pleasure to meet you," in the most non-pleasant way you could ever imagine, and Loki really hates everything for the nth time today. _Goddamn_.

"Likewise," Kitty is saying at the exact same time that Loki's asking, "What do you want, brother?" Cue yet _another_ awkward moment (they're just _full_ of those, let me tell you), and might I note that the way Loki says '_brother_' isn't amiable or fraternal in the slightest.

When Thor gathers his scrambled thoughts enough to speak, he says, "I, uh…" He casts a brief glance to the floor (it's kind of funny how people always look to the ground for confidence, like the Earth somehow has the spectacular and magical ability to bestow happiness upon anyone viewing it – yeah, _right_). "I need your help." He tugs a bit nervously on the backpack strap slung over his shoulder, and that action alone clues Loki in to just what is going on.

Thor is going to him for his _intelligence_, and suddenly, everything is all aglow with beauty and light, and Loki feels so wonderfully wide awake, and Kitty's actually not that bad to be so close to, because _hot damn_ – Thor is a _dumbass _and Loki is actually better than him at something. You know _that_ feeling, where your heart starts singing what sounds like gospel hymns and you're like an Olympic medalist in the way you're all shiny and invincible on the inside? It's called _success_ (Sounds familiar? Not to Loki, it doesn't.), and it's filling Loki up to the brim right now.

Loki smiles, vague and calm and not at all true to the surplus of gold inside him, turns to Professor X and starts to ask, "Would it be okay if I could–"

"Go ahead," Professor X cuts him off, and his answer only draws Loki's smile even wider across his face. Oh, _joy_.

"I can work overtime if you want me to," Loki offers, unhooking his arm from Kitty's and grinning when the girl hugs against his side. _Really_, his willingness to do any more than he actually has to is evidence enough of his unusual boost in mood. That he's letting Kitty hug him like he's her big brother or her boyfriend or something only solidifies the fact that he's probably going crazy with happiness.

"It's fine, Loki," Professor X replies with a small smile, "Take your time."

And then Loki _laughs_, says, "Thank you," and turns to give Kitty a big fat kiss on the forehead and an affectionate squeeze (well, if he isn't suddenly the hugest fucking ray of sunshine). Kitty giggles as Loki directs his attention to Thor and prompts, "Shall we?"

While Professor X and Kitty carry on in their battle against the zombie computer terrorizing the lab, Loki escorts Thor upstairs, where little-to-no people can be found this late in the day, and sits him down at a table in one of the many studying pods on the floor.

"What is it?" Loki asks immediately after Thor has his ass planted in a chair. He leans over the table, his hands splayed flat and wide across the plywood as he probes, almost desperately, "You can't make it through your physics course? Or is it engineering? I've heard that one's pretty hard."

"It's calc," Thor says a little roughly, tossing his backpack onto the tabletop and frowning up at Loki, who has a look that's altogether too _pleased_ plastered on his face. Loki's amused smirk turns into an outright grin at Thor's response, because _holy __**shit**_, calculus is a _high school_ course and Loki's been doing it since he was _fifteen years-old_ and oh _God_, this is too fucking good. Seriously. _Seriously_.

"Calculus?" Loki inquires. His question has nothing to do with a lack of understanding and everything to do with the fact that he's a spiteful bitch that likes to see Thor trip up and fall every now and then (and _really_, who _doesn't_ want to break something they love, if only for a moment?).

"Yeah," Thor articulates, speaking in a deliberately slow manner. He's staring his brother down with dull eyes that are just shy of icy, and while Loki is very much aware of how unappreciative Thor will be of the liberties he's about to take, he absolutely _cannot_ find it in himself to care.

"That's perfect!" Loki crows (jeeze, what an _asshole_), standing up straight and crossing his lanky arms over his chest. He brings an elegant index finger up to press against his bottom lip, asks, "What? Is it differential calculus or is it integral calculus?" He snorts. "Oh, who am I kidding? You probably don't have a _clue_ if you're coming to me."

"_Loki_," Thor cuts his tangent short. He's talking with that dangerous, hard voice he uses whenever he's getting aggravated (and by_ aggravated_, I mean _really fucking angry_), and all of a sudden, Loki remembers himself. He remembers that he's Thor's _little_ brother for this very reason (said reason being the way he's acting at the moment), remembers that he's intelligent and witty and bitter in all the right ways, remembers that he's a twenty year-old manic-depressive who's most likely going through an episode of mania right now, remembers that he should probably slow the fuck _down_ if he wants to survive the afternoon. Yeah.

"What?" Loki asks again, significantly calmer this time. He's actually looking at Thor as he speaks, now, mostly to show that he's not actively trying to be a douchebag anymore.

"I'm _failing_ this class," Thor explains carefully, and the grave seriousness with which the man is speaking strikes Loki like a lightning bolt in an electrical storm, becauseThor is _never_ serious about anything, least of all his _education_.

Impulsive and rude, Loki questions, "Why should I care?"

And this right here may very well be the reason why Thor and his cousins have abused Loki so extensively over the years – he's a horribly selfish person who asks too many questions and has an unshakeable propensity towards lying. It's _logical_; believable, even, that his family would punish him for such heinous behavior.

And you wonder why Loki hates himself.

Thor scowls something nasty and stormy, leans towards Loki with his arms spread wide and retorts, "Why _shouldn't _you? I'm your brother!"

Loki quirks his lips up into a playful smirk as a dubious show of peace (Peace? Between the two of them? _Ha_.), says rather matter-of-factly, "You wouldn't do the same for me, Thor."

(Fun Fact: Loki's mouth is the loosest of cannons when he's having a manic episode. There is absolutely _no_ filtering what might go flying between his lips at times like these.)

Thor's face falls a bit at Loki's words, and he lowers his arms to the tabletop as he argues, "Well, you wouldn't ever need me to help you with _your_ homework…"

"Of course I wouldn't," Loki snaps in a way that's somehow quite charming, circling around the table to stand in front of his brother. He tilts his head, makes a face that communicates _**Don't be dumb, now**_ as well as _**I am thoroughly unimpressed with your mental finesse **_and says, "I'm talking about favors in general."

Thor starts shaking his head and wrinkling his nose all flustered-like and embarrassed at what Loki's implying, cries, "I get it, I get it! I owe you one." The man squints his eyes up at Loki as he asks, "Are you gonna help me now or what?"

Loki's smirk morphs into something soft and endearingly condescending (is that even possible?). He replies, "Sure," easily grabbing a chair and pulling it up next to his brother's.

"I bet you're gonna make me do something really stupid," Thor grumbles, grumpily shucking a calculus textbook and a notebook out of his backpack, "Like… dress like a girl or something."

"Oh, please," Loki scoffs good-naturedly, reaching across his brother to snatch two mechanical pencils from the man's sack, "How would that benefit me?"

"You'd _laugh_," Thor points out, and the look on his face is nothing short of terrified when Loki does exactly what he says and _laughs_, _**loudly**_.

"Are you high?" Thor asks, scowling and tempestuous. It's sort of-kind of _hilarious_ just how fucking grouchy the man is, and his sour mood only has Loki laughing even harder.

"_No_," Loki giggles. _Giggles_.

Thor flips his textbook open to page two-hundred and ninety-one with a sigh, eying Loki curiously. "Yeah, _right_," he snorts.

"You know I'm sick," Loki hums almost as an excuse, grabbing Thor's notebook and finding a clean page. He automatically heads the page with the date and subject, more out of habit than for Thor's sake.

Thor hesitates a moment and just watches Loki real carefully, and Loki knows that his statement has hit home even if he didn't really mean for it to, even if he's giddy and manic and just a bit delirious, even if this is a pretty damn innocuous situation. Maybe he's some kind of dark, sinister creature full of double entendres, destined to meet his demise through his own gloomy wordplay.

Or, he's just a frenzied lunatic who's incredibly indiscriminate right now. Yeah. That sounds accurate.

"Take some medicine," Thor retorts somewhat cautiously. While his words have a lot of potential to send Loki flying into a rage (or a depression, same difference), they don't. Not now.

"Not my style," Loki counters, and before Thor can talk back to him, he reaches over and pinches the man's cheek, says, "Cheer up, will you? You're too cute to be frowning like you are."

Instead of getting all pissed off and worked up like Loki expects him to, Thor grins and lets out this thunderous roar of a laugh, his usual self quickly emerging. He whines, a bit half-heartedly, "You're so gay!"

Loki sticks his tongue out at Thor, ever the mature human being, shoving a pencil into his hand, jabbing a finger at his textbook, and commanding, "Show me what you've been doing so I can tell you where you're going wrong."

It takes about seven minutes for Thor to get through _one_ problem, and by the time he's done, Loki is sitting back in his chair and seriously wondering why-oh-_why_ he decided to help his brother at all.

Well, the answer's right there. They're _brothers_, and that's supposed to mean something significant for whatever reason.

"Okay…" Loki starts to say, the vexed inflection of his voice almost effortlessly drawing Thor's gaze his way. He rubs his fingers against his temple, giving Thor his best _**Bitch, please**_ look, complete with arched eyebrows and Bambi eyes, and sighing, "Please be truthful with me when I ask you if you know what a derivative is."

Thor blinks.

"Do you know what a derivative is?" Loki questions in a slightly clipped tone.

"It's the slope," Thor says as if _Loki_ is the dumb one here, and his answer is enough to have the younger of the two of them backtracking to his previously manic mood. Loki grins.

"If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that, what would I be?" he asks, leaning forward and taking his pencil in hand once more.

"Rich?" Thor answers, hesitant because he knows how tricky and spiteful Loki can be when he wants to (which is ninety-nine percent of the time, to be honest).

"And terribly frustrated with humanity," Loki quips, bopping Thor on the nose with his eraser before diving into his near-perfect explanation of what is what. "The _slope_ is the ratio of the altitude change to the horizontal distance between any two points on the line. The _derivative_ is how much one quantity is changing in response to changes in another. It is the slope of the line tangent to the curve at the point. Understand?"

"Could you repeat that in English, Mister Textbook?" Thor replies, his brows knitted together in an obvious expression of confusion. Loki sighs, long and unnecessary and so very _entitled_.

"The _slope_ is the rise divided by the run," Loki carefully elaborates, snatching Thor's notebook and turning it so that he can write comfortably (damn his left-handedness). He sketches out a coordinate plane and slashes a line across it, points his eraser at the x-axis. "If this line is 'running' two units for every four units it 'rises', what is the slope?"

"Two," Thor answers after a beat of mental calculation.

"Correct," Loki says. He erases the straight line he's drawn and replaces it with a parabola, then draws a point on said parabola and puts a tangent line on it. Thor's face quickly transforms into something nervous and alarmed as Loki draws, so Loki pokes his the man's cheek and lets out an airy chuckle to ease his nerves.

"Don't be scared," he purrs, "I'm right here."

"Yeah, yeah," Thor croaks, sighing deeply in his anxiety.

"Look here," Loki instructs, "The slope of _this_, which is the tangent line, is two, right?" Thor nods, after which Loki draws three more tangent lines at various other points on the parabola. "Here, it's one half, here it's one third, and here, it's one fourth. What does that tell you?"

Thor stares hard at his notebook for about a minute in a half before replying, slow and uncertain, "That the derivative is always changing?"

Loki grins, crows, "Yes!" As a small smile begins to blossom across Thor's face, Loki explains, "Curved lines don't have set slopes, because the rate of change is constantly being altered. They have _derivatives_, which _are_ slopes, but not of the lines themselves." He points to the tangent. "They're the slopes of the tangent lines. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah. _Yeah!_" Thor exclaims, clapping a heavy, painful hand on Loki's poor porcelain shoulder (where bruises will almost certainly be tomorrow). He's grinning from ear-to-ear, all accomplished and proud and _fuck_, Loki feels like he's actually done the right thing for once. That's a nice sensation going on right there in the center of his chest, it is.

"Good," Loki hums. He refuses to look at Thor as he brings the man's textbook closer to him, mostly because he knows doing so will most likely make him cry golden tears of sheer happiness.

"Thanks, Loki. I don't think I would have gotten that if you hadn't showed me," Thor goes on, and this time, Loki can't _not _look at his brother. All of a sudden, they're both smiling like idiots and Loki actually feels his eyes getting wet with emotion and Thor is looking at him like he's some kind of wonderful deity in his eternal favor and oh _God_, this is way too much like a Hallmark movie to actually be for real.

"You're welcome," Loki laughs. He allows himself to watch Thor one beautiful second more before turning his attention back to the calculus in front of them, taking a deep breath, and starting, "Now, about this problem."

* * *

It's nearing seven o'clock when Loki and Thor have worked their way through a whole chapter in Thor's textbook. Their easy hype and playful banter is pretty much brought to a close when Kurt Wagner appears out of fucking nowhere and announces, real pompous and sanctimonious, "Professor X says you can go home, now."

Thor and Loki look up in near-perfect unison at Kurt's arrival, and then all three of them are abruptly and uncomfortably silent while they figure out who's going to say something first (because everybody is always awkward around each other and the world is an awful place full of decisions to be made). Uhm.

"Thank you," Loki manages after a few long moments. His statement functions as something like a green light for Thor to start packing his shit into his backpack, the man more than eager to get his yucky schoolwork out of his face.

Kurt smiles something thin and droll, nods curtly (haha, _curtly_), and replies, "No problem." He slowly, leisurely dawdles his way out of the study pod and disappears behind a bookshelf, Loki fastidiously watching him the whole way, and _really_, that boy can be mighty strange and mysterious when he wants to be.

Why can't anyone be _normal_ these days?

Thor stands up just as Loki does, his backpack slung over his shoulder, and he watches his younger brother for a few seconds before asking, "Do you like, have to get anything or can we just leave?"

Loki smiles a bit, scooting his chair in as he answers, "I need to grab my backpack from the break room and check out at the front desk, but you can go ahead and head home."

Thor mirrors Loki's pleased expression, nodding affirmatively. He starts for the exit, obviously keen to get out of this dumb library with its dumb books and dumb _quietness_, only to stop, turn to Loki, and ask, "Is it okay if Sif and Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun come over tonight?"

Loki is at a rather atypical loss for words at first, taken aback by Thor's unusual interest in his opinion. _Honestly_, it's a downright miraculous occurrence that Thor would be _requesting_ _his_ _permission_ to bring his godawful friends into his house, especially after he's just let them barge in like destroyer angels time after time before. That he's concerned _at all _for Loki's feelings in general is just… weird (in a perfectly good way, mind you).

"Sure," Loki replies, and almost immediately after the simple word leaves his mouth, his head turns into this jumbled mess of _Why?_'s and self-directed insults, because _fuck_ his good mood – Thor White and the Four Dwarves may actually destroy his house this time, and all because he's _happy_ (_ugh_, what an _awful_ emotion) enough to let them do it.

But it's too late to change his mind, and Thor already has gifted him with one of his stupid sunshiney smiles and set off for the elevator before Loki can gather himself enough to take back or amend his answer. _Goddammit_.

Loki spends about thirty seconds staring at the floor and trying to decide what to do with his hyperactive emotions, after which he just gives up and decides to roll with whatever the gods may throw his way. Besides, if things get too rough to handle, he has Fenrir to play with and Tony on his speed dial. Right.

Loki's on his way after his brother when a small cough coming from the direction of one of the bookshelves to his left catches his attention. He pauses in his steps, apprehensive and hesitant and just a little bit confused, but it only takes him a few seconds to realize that Kurt is probably just being a creeper and he's not suddenly living in the middle of a cheap horror film (can you imagine what _that_ would be like – a slasher movie taking place at a college library?).

Loki glances over his shoulder and finds the aforementioned Kurt, leaning against the edge of a shelf marked _Romance_ and eyeballing him quite openly. Oh, _hell_.

You see, Loki may not be extraordinarily familiar with Kurt Wagner, but he's familiar enough with the man to know that _one_, he's a flaming homosexual (and when I say _flaming_, I mean _fah-__**lay**__-ming_, as in hot enough to set your drapes on fire if you let him stray too close to them), and _two_, he doesn't always have the best of intentions.

"_You're_ leaving kind of fast, hm?" Kurt questions in a slightly rhetorical, somewhat hair-raising sort of tone. He crosses his arms, watching Loki with intent brown eyes. Loki gives him a nearly imperceptible grimace in response.

"It's seven o'clock, is it not?" he retorts, already turning for the elevator. He's not ready to get in an argument with yet _another _person who most likely wants in his pants (Fandral is already sure to give him problems later on anyway), and plus, Kurt's really not that bad a guy in his opinion. He'd very much like to keep things that way.

However, because the world works in odd and terrifying ways (and apparently wants him to hate anything with a pulse), Kurt asks, all abrupt and rude and totally out-of-nowhere, "You're sleeping with Tony Stark, aren't you?"

And then Loki _really_ has to stop, because holy _shit_, it's getting _pretty fucking __**old**_ having people ask him about his relationship status. He returns his attention to Kurt, eyes hard and mouth set in a grim line full of _fuck you_'s , and counters, "What's it to you?"

_Really_. Why the hell does it matter so much to _everybody in the __**universe**_ whether he and Tony are a thing or not?

Kurt does this ugly, smirking little thing with his mouth (wow, what a _shit_), goes, "I'm just worried about you."

_What_.

"You have no reason to be," Loki snaps, having fished the comment out of the aquarium of comebacks he's got sitting at the back of his mind. He feels like some kind of hybrid porcupine-cobra sort of thing, now, prickly and pissed and _tired_ of talking about Tony Stark to people who have no idea who he is. And _yeah_, he knows that he sounds like some dumb bitch who's blinded by love or some other ghastly concoction nature has cooked up just to bring mortals to their knees, but he honest to God _doesn't __**care**_about what he might look like to a bystander when he's practically rocked Tony to sleep while the man poured the contents of his heart out to him more times than he can count on his hand.

He knows Tony better than the inside of his eyelids, and Tony knows him like the breath in his lungs. _Fuck_ what anyone else has to say about how Tony is a _predator _or how Loki needs to watch himself, because _goddammit_ if Tony doesn't do that better than anyone ever could, _goddammit_ if that maelstrom of a person Tony used to be is long fucking gone, _**goddammit**_ if Loki doesn't want Tony like a flame wants oxygen or like the sun wants the moon or like a heart wants a beat.

Kurt must notice the change in Loki's demeanor (and really, only a massive _idiot_ wouldn't), because his expression softens into something more passive. He takes a few steps closer to Loki as he says, so ambiguous it's _infuriating_, "I'm only being friendly."

"Who said we were friends?" Loki sharply retorts, a spike of triumph jolting through him when Kurt gives an infinitesimal frown at his words. Loki watches the man with frigid eyes, waiting for him to reply and unsure whether or not he should make a big fuss out of asserting himself (which he really shouldn't – _doesn't_ – have to do).

"I apologize for being so _congenial_," Kurt eventually says, like _oooh, I can be wordy too_ and just a tad vindictive. He holds his hands up in a blatant expression of innocence, adds, "All I'm saying is that Tony probably isn't the best person to get tangled up with." A beat. "_I'd_ know."

Dear _**Lord**_.

It takes a few seconds for Loki to formulate a response, during which he fixes Kurt with one of the darkest looks he's ever dared give _anyone_ (and believe me, anything nastier is something only Thor's ever seen while he and Loki resided in what was basically relationship hell), fights through the haze of resentment and jealousy clouding his senses, and decides just where he wants to fall on the bitch scale.

Walking over to get right up in Kurt's personal space (if you hadn't noticed, this means that shit has definitely gotten _real_ by now), Loki lets go of any inhibitions he might have had before and says, "Honestly, I don't give a _damn_ about what you and Tony may or may not have done in bed together forever ago. It's not my business, and I really don't want it _ever_ to be my business. Understand?"

Kurt stares at him, his face impassive as stone. He blinks, an action Loki is more than pleased to accept as acknowledgment.

"Tony is my closest friend," Loki continues, his voice managing to be both aloof and forceful, "I know what I'm getting myself into, so while I appreciate your… _concern_," he bites the word out, sarcastic and spiteful and everything he is as a person, "… it's quite unnecessary and shouldn't be anything to lose sleep over."

Kurt's icy façade starts to slip, starts to turn into something vaguely irritated and absolutely _wonderful_ to behold.

"Perhaps if you made an effort to get to know Tony again, you'd know that he's nothing to be afraid of," Loki goes on, and the affronted look Kurt shoots him, all widened eyes and pursed lips, brings a tiny, almost guilty smile to his face. He cocks his head just slightly, a master of body language (especially of the intimidating kind), and adds, "But I don't strongly recommend that."

Then Kurt snorts out a laugh, his expression mutating into mild amusement. He gives Loki a cursory once over and quips, "Because he's yours, right?"

Okay, now. _This_ is why Loki really isn't a fan of hanging out with the gay people around campus. Most if not all of them are like _this_ – petty and possessive and too obsessed with their so-called _property_. They also _love_ to keep personal databases of anyone who's ever gotten in bed with them or even _looked_ at them with romantic intentions, not to mention the fact that most of these people are also their sworn enemies. Yeah. There's no middle ground with the gays.

But instead of being uglier than he really has to be, Loki smirks and replies, "You got it."

Kurt smiles a genuine smile then, and Loki suddenly feels like he's accomplished something great for the second time today (which he has, actually; earning the favor of someone like Kurt Wagner is up there with winning a Nobel Peace Prize over here). He gives Kurt one last glance before turning away and _finally_ making his way over to the elevator, pressing the _Down _button as he says, "Forget we ever had this conversation, okay? I don't want to end up on your hit list."

Kurt lets out another laugh, more open and melodious than the last one, trailing Loki into the elevator and asking, "You sure you want that? I think I like you better, now."

"Don't then," Loki hums. He just barely catches the Cheshire grin Kurt rewards him with as the elevator doors slide closed.

* * *

**Tada~!**

**Okay, I'm going to be honest and say that **_**one**_**, I kinda-sorta **_**hate**_** the way my writing came out, **_**two**_**, I haven't edited this too extensively, and **_**three**_**, I had no idea that Kurt and Tony had a history until I was typing it and thinking **_**hoshit, I'm bad**_**. Yeah. This is how I develop plot; spontaneously and with blood in mind. Also, I have not one fucking clue how to do calculus, and I desperately hope that doesn't show in my writing.**

**The next chapter is going to be a quickie, I'm almost positive. I'll get to your reviews and messages very soon, I promise, and I'm sorry for being such a lazy fuck.**

**Reviews and recommendations are very much appreciated, my darlings. I love you guys so much.**

**- Gabi.**


	16. Social Networking

**Title:** Social Networking.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language.  
**Word Count:** ~8,700.  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Tony Stark, Kitty Pryde, Frigga, Fandral, Emma Frost, Wanda Maximoff, Freya, Freyr, Balder, and a plethora of other characters.  
**Warnings:** AU. Beware of heart attacks.  
**Summary:** "I love you," Loki breathes, watching in borderline awe as three, four, five notifications pop up in rapid succession, and all because he's in love. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** So. This is going to be another experimental chapter, much like _Telephone_ but on the Internet this time. Uhm, I'm unsure how to go about writing this, so bear with me if it sounds a little weird. Also, one change I forgot to mention in the last chapter is the fact that Nick Fury is now the captain of the football team, _**AND**_, I would definitely heed the warnings above; this baby ends with a cliffhanger. Uhm, this chapter overlaps with the last three in the sense that Loki's episode with his scar happened on October 1st, he visited Tony on October 2nd, and went to work on the third. So, yeah. Just clearing that up, and I hope you enjoy this clusterfuck.

* * *

_**Saturday, October 1**__**st**__** at 7:46 PM.**_

(_It's seven o'clock at night and he's waiting for the pizza in the oven to finish cooking. Thor is off in his room, blasting his dreadful music at a wall-shaking volume and practically begging for Loki to rip him a new one the next time he shows himself. Loki aims a lengthy, spiteful glance at the ceiling, plugs his ears with ear-buds, puts on some Nicki Minaj, and gets his ass on Facebook for the first time in forever. He finds himself with a million and a half notifications, three new friend requests, and a poke from Tony. Friend requests are the first to get eliminated._)

**Friend Requests**

**Fandral Detroux  
**Elysian University  
**Thor Skywalker** and **29 mutual friends**

**Odin Skywalker  
**Works at Skywalker and Skywalker LLP  
**Frigga Skywalker **and **4 mutual friends**

**Logan Howlett  
**Works at I'm a Fucking Football Player  
**Steve Rogers** and **19 mutual friends**

(_Loki makes a face much like that of a goldfish, accepting Fandral's request, denying Odin's, and letting his mouse hover over Logan's for a few faltering seconds before deciding to deny it as well. He then turns his attention to the aggressive and ironic little __**66**__ sitting extraordinarily loud and red on his notifications, which he finds consists of the following.)_

**Steve Rogers **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Emma Frost **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kitty Pryde **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Emma Frost **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kitty Pryde **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kitty Pryde **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kitty Pryde **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Thor Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Emma Frost **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Steve Rogers **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Thor Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Emma Frost **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Thor Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Steve Rogers **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Thor Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Steve Rogers **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Natasha Romanoff **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Natasha Romanoff **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Wanda Maximoff **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Wanda Maximoff **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Wanda Maximoff **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Wanda Maximoff **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Gwen Stacey **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freyr Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Freya Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Clint Barton **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Clint Barton **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Tony Stark **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Tony Stark **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Tony Stark **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Tony Stark **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Tony Stark **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Fandral Detroux **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Fandral Detroux **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Fandral Detroux **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Sif Angelica **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Sif Angelica **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Sif Angelica **commented on a **photo you were tagged in  
****Jean Grey **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Jean Grey **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kurt Wagner **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Kurt Wagner **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Frigga Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Frigga Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Frigga Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Frigga Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Frigga Skywalker **liked a **photo you were tagged in  
****Thor Skywalker **tagged you in a **photo  
****Thor Skywalker **tagged you in a **photo  
****Thor Skywalker **tagged you in a **photo  
****Thor Skywalker **tagged you in a **photo  
****Thor Skywalker **tagged you in a **photo**

(_Loki hesitates when he sees names like _Freyr Skywalker _and _Emma Frost_, and the paranoid part of him is terrified of just _what_ Thor might have put up with his face plastered all over it. It could be something embarrassing from long, long ago, or one of those annoying tagging pictures everybody loves and hates in equal and terrifying amounts, or _worse _– photos from Steve's party that magically showed up to kick him in the behind. Youch. _

_However, Frigga and Tony's names stop him from getting too worked up, and he briefly glances at the time before clicking on the first picture Thor tagged him in._

_It's an ancient photograph, grainy and sentimental in a way you can see in the tiny specks of dust eternally pressed into it. The scene is predominantly dark, and the only light source that can be found in it is a birthday cake lit with ten tiny candles, over which a miniature Loki leans, lips puckered and ready to blow some bitches out. A plastic crown is perched atop his head and Thor is bent over his shoulder, his face a gleeful mask of anticipation. They are ten and eleven, here, and suddenly, Loki remembers this particular birthday party with flush of nostalgia, with a spark of pride and a touch of sadness all rolled into one beautiful bundle._

_It was the last good party he'd ever had, really._)

**Thor Skywalker**

so i found a bunch of old pictures lol this was lokis birthday party ten years ago – with **Loki Skywalker**.

**Frigga Skywalker, Kurt Wagner, **and** 7 others **like this.

**Sif Angelica **holy shit. why so cute. stop that.  
2 hours ago

**Steve Rogers** WOW :D  
8 minutes ago

(_Loki just stares at his monitor for a whole minute and a half, utterly perplexed. For some obscure reason, he finds it almost astoundingly funny in an odd sort of way that these people, these people he doesn't even know that well, are interested in a piece of him. Sure, that piece of him is _dead_ now, recycled a thousand times over in the forms of old cells and new memories, and of course, that Thor's the one who displayed it has a lot to do with the reception, but still. That was him. And Mother, Kurt Wagner, and seven other people like that. And Sif thinks he was cute. And Steve Rogers is impressed._

_Loki's amazement grows little by little when he goes on to the next picture._

_This photo is just as timeless and faraway as the last one, and it doesn't take very long for Loki to realize that _yeah_, it's a little depressing for him to be seeing glimpses of himself and his life from when he and it were much happier, much more carefree. He studies the old faces of his cousins, Thor, and himself, which are painted on and joyful, for the most part. _

_It's that Halloween they dressed up as characters from _The Wizard of Oz_, and they're all piled onto Aunt Volla's ugly old vintage couch. Thor and Balder are standing over the rest of them, arms slung over shoulders and expressions polar opposites of one another – Thor looks undoubtedly ecstatic, while Balder is apparently mortified by the camera. Thor's Scarecrow costume is a bit on the baggy side, with fake hay poking out of it at all the right places and clay-colored face paint smeared across his cheeks and nose in such a wonderfully chaotic manner. Balder is adorable, his chubby face framed by a wild fringe of golden-brown mane and decorated with thick black whiskers and a ruddy pink nose._

_And then there's Freyr, Freya, and Loki, squished together between Thor and Balder's legs. Freyr is a sight to behold, silver-faced and silver-haired and completely clothed in _silver_, with an impish smirk that's just barely detectable through a photograph. Freya sits in the middle, and Loki can't help but smile when he sees the girl he once thought of as his sun and stars. She looks like a princess, all rosy cheeks and perfect dimples and hair curled like something straight out of a movie, and her baby blue dress, lacy and ruffled and _flawless_, pretty much solidifies her royal image. Her wildness comes through in the ridiculous grin plastered on her face, though._

_Then there Loki is, a shock of messy black fur and with a halo of ebony curls about his head, two fake puppy ears poking out from his crown. His nose is darkened along with his lips, and of all the children in the photo, he appears to be the smallest, what with his legs pulled up to his chest and his head bowed low, towards Freya's. His expression is vulnerable and open, his eyes the size of baby worlds and his lips curled in a smile so tentative it's almost heartbreaking. Loki swallows thickly._)

**Thor Skywalker**

lol remember this halloween? sooooooo fun – with **Balder Skywalker**, **Freyr Skywalker**, **Freya Skywalker**, and **Loki Skywalker**.

**Frigga Skywalker**, **Kurt Wagner**, and** 5 others **like this.

**Fandral Detroux **OMG . Look at your face bro ! and Loki ! This is the best thing I've ever seen ! ;)  
about an hour ago

**Wanda Maximoff** So precious. I can't believe you were all so cute!  
29 minutes ago

**Emma Frost **Omg Thor That's Adorable~ I Wonder What Happened Lol  
28 minutes ago

**Thor Skywalker** y u h8in xD  
27 minutes ago

**Steve Rogers **it's the WIZARD OF OZ :DDD  
25 minutes ago

**Emma Frost** Im Not Haten Im Just Making An Observation Lol  
Your Brother Looks So Cute Btw  
25 minutes ago

**Thor Skywalker **Steve no duh bro lol  
Emma u can keep that 2 urself  
22 minutes ago

**Emma Frost** Me? Never Lol!  
18 minutes ago

**Kitty Pryde **Omigosh, how ADORABLE! You're all as cute as bugs, holy crap, PLEASE PLEASE SHARE THE CUTENESS! I'm dyin' here! x3  
11 minutes ago

(_Loki is still fascinated. It feels weird, having the attention of someone who isn't Tony or Frigga. It feels _weird_, seeing himself so little after he's gone through so much and spent such a long time refusing to look into his past any farther than the accident. It feels _fucking **weird**_, being an object of interest, of _envy_, however playful that envy may be._

_The next picture actually makes him laugh at loud, and Loki presses his palm against his mouth almost involuntarily to stifle the uncharacteristically joyful noise that escapes him._

_It's another photograph of him, his cousins, and Thor, but this time, they're a little bit older and a lot more unconscious. Loki can make out his old sea-print comforter and a pink '_princess_' blanket beneath their slumbering bodies, and he lets his eyes travel from the top left corner of the photo all the way to the bottom right in a dizzy, dawdling path on which he finds himself lingering in many places and at many times. Thor is at the start, lying on his back with his mouth hanging open, his arm flung up and across his forehead, and a secondhand Metallica t-shirt riding up his stomach. Loki can nearly hear his brother's fourteen year-old snore, just as loud and terrifying as it is today, as he examines the old image with greedy eyes._

_Balder is lying next to Thor in a fetal position, his back pressed against the boy's side in a way that would be awkward if the two of them were awake. To his right is Freyr, sleeping on his stomach and baring his smooth, elegant back to the camera. His hair is a mess of gold, tufting out in odd places and so unlike his always-composed, always-collected self. _

_And then there's Freya and Loki, their legs tangled together and their bodies huddled close. Freya has her head tucked beneath Loki's chin and her arms wound tight around his torso, and Loki can't even begin to suppress the wave of melancholy and guilt that washes over him at the sight, because it's really goddamn _hard _to think about his cousin so wistfully when he knows that the last thing he said to her was more than awful. _

_Of course, the remorse he feels starts to ebb when he remembers that Freya has hurt his feelings in more ways than one throughout their lives, but that doesn't change the fact that he's always been darker, nastier, and a lot more spiteful than she ever was or ever could be. That doesn't change the fact that she was an angel heaven miraculously decided to give him. That doesn't change the fact that he could have been a better person and he chose not to be._

_Then again, you wouldn't be able to see any of that through the photograph Loki's got his eyes on._)

**Thor Skywalker**

aunt vollas summer camp of doom was fuckin stressfl lol – with **Balder Skywalker**, **Freyr Skywalker**, **Freya Skywalker**, and **Loki Skywalker**.

**Frigga Skywalker**, **Sif Angelica**, and** 9 others **like this.

**Freyr Skywalker **Hah! This is fantastic! :D  
about an hour ago

**Freya Skywalker** oh god, thor! i can't believe you found this! look at how cute and small we are, just. god. you guys remember this right? remember how auntie would have us run around the block like a bajillion times and we'd have special days like art day and sports day and THE WORST: AID DAY. you guys remember that?  
48 minutes ago

**Freyr Skywalker **Oh yes~ I remember very well how often Thor and Balder would beat us two and Keys at football, but as soon as we had to start cleaning things they'd act like they had the flu. How sad.  
32 minutes ago

**Freya Skywalker **lol! i still have the puzzle piece i painted and that little ceramic cat i made when we went to apollo. and i still listen to that cd loki burnt for me. and the t-shirt! remember the awesome tie-dyes we did?  
30 minutes ago

**Freyr Skywalker **Holy shit, YES. I sincerely believe we should all get together soon.  
29 minutes ago

**Freya Skywalker **agreed~!  
29 minutes ago

**Steve Rogers **this is wonderful…  
25 minutes ago

**Thor Skywalker **i no rite lol this was the fuckin best summer  
18 minutes ago

**Steve Rogers **it certainly looks like it, bro :D  
11 minutes ago

**Thor Skywalker **fuc k yes!  
9 minutes ago

(_This is where Loki has to stop and just feel everything out – the memories of that summer, so wonderful and dreadful in so many ways; the emotions attached to said memories; the altogether nothingness of any warm, fuzzy, friendly, and/or familial feelings he previously had for his cousins, the ones that are only just now coming back in regard to Thor. Sometimes, he doesn't even know what to do with himself when he starts thinking about how back-then was so beautiful in all the wrong ways compared to the present, especially when he realizes how much he took it all for granted. Now, when the gods are having a goddamn ball shoving thirteen years of the closest Loki could ever get to Heaven in his face, is one of those times._

_Without warning, Loki makes a conscious decision to stop living in the past, at least for a little while. As much as Tony likes his stories and as much as the students of Elysian University appreciate how cute he may have been as a child, his emotions seriously need a little hang time._

_Almost in spite of his newly-made choice, Loki spends a few seconds admiring the fourth picture Thor has opted to post, which isn't so bad simply because it was taken at a time when Loki was much too young to remember any circumstances or situations that may have been surrounding it. He is three and Thor is four, and the two of them are sharing what Loki instantly recognizes as Odin's ancient armchair, something that got moved into his study after their first dog took it upon himself to ruin its legs. Thor is squeezing the life out of his tiny brother's body, a frenzied grin spread across his face._)

**Thor Skywalker**

this was forever ago omg – with **Loki Skywalker**.

**Frigga Skywalker, Tony Stark, **and** 4 others **like this.

**Wanda Maximoff **Such beautiful children.  
28 minutes ago

(_The next and final photograph is the most recent one, taken when Loki was sixteen and Thor was seventeen. Loki quickly becomes conscious of the fact that this picture was snapped a year before the accident, and isn't it funny how his mind turns into some kind of calculator or number line when he's examining his own existence, the accident fixed at _0_ and the two infinite halves of his life measured in years on either side? Isn't it funny that he'll still be doing this morbid arithmetic by the time he's at _10_, or _20_, or maybe even _30_? Isn't it just _hilarious_?_

_The photograph is dark and illuminated by fire, much like the first one, except rather than being minute and lit by a brand new year of life, this flame is grand and slowly burning through a pile of logs and garbage. Thor, Loki, Freyr, and Freya sit beside it, crowded together and wrapped in a quilt of epic proportions, and it's just now that Loki realizes how significant, how _special_, this moment really is. This took place at a time when the four – five, if you include Balder – of them were falling apart at the seams, when Thor and Balder became elitist bullies who sat rather comfortably at the top of the food chain, when Freyr began to dabble in things like hallucinogenic drugs and unprotected sex, when Loki and Freya started to see themselves as enlightened and empowered by their oh-so progressive ideas about life and the indie music they liked to listen to. They all drifted away from each other in ways they thought they never would, but that's almost impossible to tell from the picture._)

**Thor Skywalker**

idek – with **Freyr Skywalker**, **Loki Skywalker**, and **Freya Skywalker**.

**Frigga Skywalker, Tony Stark, **and** 2 others **like this.

**Freya Skywalker **i miss this so much. why don't we ever see each other anymore? :(  
about an hour ago

(_Loki is extremely tempted to answer his cousin, but he doesn't. Such is the way of a coward._

_Instead, he swipes the back of his hand across his eyes, pokes Tony back, and shuts his laptop in favor of getting that pizza out of the oven._)

* * *

_**Sunday, October 2**__**nd**__** at 6:28 PM.**_

(_He plops down on his bed, just slightly out of breath, sliding his laptop over to him and sighing quietly when Fenrir jumps up on the mattress beside him. It takes Loki about a minute to peel the too-stuffy sweater he's wearing off of him, kick his shoes to the side, maneuver himself onto his stomach, and grab Fenrir by the jowls and kiss all over his head and muzzle like the mother hen he secretly is. He lets the husky nestle beside him as he gets on the Internet to check his e-mail, Tumblr, and Facebook, digging his phone out of his pocket and rooting around for any text messages or calls he might have missed in the same instant. Isn't he a true twenty-first century man?_

_The only thing Loki finds of interest in the midst of a sea of junk mail and new followers is an application request._)

**Thor Skywalker **sent you a request in **Robot Unicorn Attack**.

(_Okay._

_Loki stares at the request for a moment, then at the clock at the bottom of the screen, then once more at the request. He wants to get back out the door and to the mall by 6:30 or 6:35, but dammit if a name like _Robot Unicorn Attack_ isn't just a little bit tempting. And _yes _– he can and _does_ act like an absentminded child sometimes. A lot of times. Times when he's alone and no one is there to see him act like a fool. Yeah. You get the picture._

_After mock-consulting his dilemma with Fenrir, Loki decides to just give in and waste some time for a couple minutes. Two minutes turns into ten minutes, which eventually turns into fifteen, and _really_, this is all because of the bomb-ass Erasure song that goads him on as he plays. _

_When six-forty-five rolls around, Fenrir jumps off of the bed and barks at Loki, almost as if to remind him that he has shit to do, like take him for a walk and buy Tony a birthday present. Loki fixes the husky with a look that conveys something like jadedness, but Fenrir just barks at him a second time, watching him with his too-intelligent, brilliant blue eyes. They complete each other, can't you tell?_

_Loki powers his laptop down and rolls off of his bed and onto the ground, tackling and tussling with Fenrir until the husky's got him grabbing his backpack and sweater and running out of the room, both of them howling like wolves._)

* * *

_**Monday, October 3**__**rd**__** at 9:09 PM.**_

(_He's absolutely _exhausted_, his manic episode from earlier having died down about twenty minutes after he'd gotten home. At the moment, he's holed up in his room, away from Thor White and the Four Dwarves, buried beneath two blankets and a dog, sitting on Facebook, and waiting for Tony to call him or text him or _contact_ him in some way, shape, or form so he can go the fuck to sleep already. Jeeze._

_Just as Loki begins to doze off, a notification catches his attention. He finds that Kitty has posted something on his wall, and after reading the message she's sent him, he smiles, an inkling of his good mood returning to him._)

**Kitty Pryde **▶ **Loki Skywalker**

I think you are soooooo sweet!  
12 seconds ago

(_Loki takes a moment to formulate his response, mentally measuring out careful doses of denial, gratitude, and sarcasm in order to reply with something that isn't too awful nor too acquiescent. He adds a smiley-face at the end for good measure._)

**Loki Skywalker** How nice of you to say such a thing. :]  
49 seconds ago

**Kitty Pryde** It's true tho! Don't you believe me? :3  
just now

(_Loki gives a wry smirk._)

**Loki Skywalker **Not at all, to be honest. How do you call yourself knowing me?  
2 minutes ago

**Loki Skywalker** But I do appreciate your words. Thank you.  
about a minute ago

**Kitty Pryde **Loki, I think you're so awesome and… what's the word? Charming? Lovable? Either one works, hehe!  
53 seconds ago

**Kitty Pryde **The only reason you don't agree with me is because you refuse to! Duh!  
45 seconds ago

(_Loki runs a hand through his messy hair, reading over Kitty's comments several times and thinking to himself just how much glee the girl brings into his life – at least, when he lets her. He's at a loss for what to say for a few seconds, unused to accepting compliments from someone who isn't Tony or Frigga. It'd be a bit rude to deflect Kitty's praise with insults like he would with those closer to him._

_Some higher power must be on his side, though, because it turns out that he doesn't have to say anything._)

**Frigga Skywalker **I have to agree with your friend, Loki.  
just now

(_First of all, what the hell is Frigga doing on Facebook at nine o'clock at night? You'd think a stately woman such as she would have better things to do at a time like this._

_Secondly, Loki kind of feels like hiding his face and whining even though Frigga and Kitty aren't there to see him do it, because _shit _– he's not good at being… well, a good person. He doesn't do _sweet_ or _charming_ or _lovable_ as good as some people think he does, and while it's just barely okay to get told that he is this way, when it gets to the point where he's almost getting argued with over bullshit? No. That's when he's struck with the urge to start being as argumentative and bitter as he can possibly be._)

**Kitty Pryde** See! I'm not the only one! :D  
10 seconds ago

(_Dear Lord._)

**Loki Skywalker **I'm glad you think so, but I really just cannot agree with you. I'm sorry.  
2 minutes ago

**Kitty Pryde **That's a shame. :( I think you'd be a looooottt happier if you weren't always beating your poor self up!  
about a minute ago

**Frigga Skywalker** She's right, my dear. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit. :P  
19 seconds ago

(_Okay, Loki's just going to pretend he never even saw that emoticon at the end, because nobody, _nobody_, sticks their tongue out after finishing a statement like that. Cue a rather elegant eye-roll._)

**Loki Skywalker **Am I going to have to argue with you about this?  
about a minute ago

**Kitty Pryde **YES! You will!  
just now

(_Alrighty, then. You broke the dam that's holding the majority of m'darling. Prepare for the fallout._)

**Loki Skywalker **I'm an awfully spiteful, terribly misanthropic person. I complain about the littlest things. I'm vindictive, self-centered, aggressive, dishonest. The fact that I'm too lazy and self-hating to even try to agree with you should tell you a whole lot about how unpleasant I am.  
6 seconds ago

(_Loki gives himself a mental pat on the back for generating a sufficiently coherent response. Now, kindly excuse him while he lays his head down on his pillow and shoots a rather dark glare at his phone._)

**Frigga Skywalker ** You may be all that, Loki, but you can also be incredibly sweet and warm when you want to. You have so much heart, sweetie-pie. That's not something to be ashamed of.  
2 minutes ago

**Kitty Pryde **^THIS  
about a minute ago

**Kitty Pryde** Plus, you are so SMART and FUNNY! Omg, I don't think I know anybody that makes me laugh as hard as you do! AND, you were one of the first people to be nice to me when the school year started. That means A LOT.  
9 seconds ago

(_Loki makes a face that manages to be both annoyed and pleased, a face that only intensifies with Frigga's next comment._)

**Frigga Skywalker **If that isn't sweet, I don't know what is. :O)  
about a minute ago

**Loki Skywalker** Stoooop. You're making me feel good about myself.  
23 seconds ago

**Kitty Pryde **Isn't that the point lol? xD  
just now

(_Loki lets a quiet chuckle escape him right before his cellphone starts vibrating, and all of a sudden, his interest in everything drastically declines in comparison to the call or message he's receiving. Oops._)

**Loki Skywalker **Believe me, I appreciate it. I really do, but I have to go now, sadly. Morpheus calls.  
just now

(_A little lie never hurt anyone._)

**Frigga Skywalker **Goodnight, lovebug. Dream sweet. :)  
about a minute ago

**Kitty Pryde **Aww, okay. :( Nighty-night, Loki. I'll see you tomorrow! :D  
8 seconds ago

(_Loki grins, reveling in the wonderfully rare sensation of being loved before putting his laptop to sleep, carefully relocating it to the floor, gently pushing Fenrir off of his hip, and reading over his most recent text message. _

_And what do you know? It's Tony._)

* * *

_**Tuesday, October 4**__**th**__** at 8:17 PM.**_

(_He's sitting in the center of the sofa, an array of textbooks and notebooks and a laptop at his left, a sleepy, satisfied husky at his right. Thor is on the floor in front of the TV, going at it on the X-Box like all normal, educated people do on Tuesday nights._

_In all honesty, though? Loki has no room to think anything remotely condescending of Thor, and that's mainly because he's logged into both Facebook and Tumblr at the moment, which axiomatically means that about fifty percent of his attention is not on the studying he needs to be doing. Yeah. Common sense and logic _definitely_ run in their family if you hadn't noticed._

_Loki is glancing up from his sociology notes when he notices the little red __**1**__ on top of his messages. He furrows his brow for a nearly imperceptible moment, deftly moving his fingers over his mouse pad and clicking his way into his inbox, where he finds the following._)

**Tony Stark  
**i have a question for you, moon of my life. ;)

(_Loki smiles a bit, real soft and vague, shifting his position slightly to type a reply._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Yes, my sun and stars?

**Tony Stark  
**which do you prefer: endymion or joie de vivre?

(_In case you're wondering just what the hell Tony is talking about, and you probably are, _Endymion _and _Joie de Vivre_ are two bars/nightclubs in the area. The former is one of those indie, classy sort of music bars, while the latter is pretty much the queen of all nightclubs, in both good and bad ways._

_Loki takes a few seconds to consider his answer as Thor practically roars at the television._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**That depends. Endymion is homier and attracts a better crowd, in my opinion, but Joie de Vivre is great if you want to have a lot of fun.

Why?

**Tony Stark  
**just wondering… ;)

(_Loki deadpans._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Tony, seriously. :|

**Tony Stark  
**i'm just trying to decide where to take you on my birthday.

(_Loki almost wants to scream, now, more out of exasperation than glee, to tell you the truth. Sure, he's overjoyed to go _anywhere_ with Tony, and _yes_, he knows that his feelings are entirely mutual, but _goddammit_ if something isn't wrong with this equation when he's getting rewarded and it's _Tony's_birthday, not to mention the paranoid but entirely feasible possibility that people like Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, and maybe even _Kurt Wagner_, might show up and ruin everything. See what I mean?_

_Tony must be psychic or something, because he sends Loki another message before the man can even start typing up a bitchy retort._)

**Tony Stark  
**please don't get upset. the only thing i want for my birthday is to be with you. it just so happens that you want the same thing.

at least… i hope you do?

(_Loki deflates like a balloon, his puckered scowl returning to its previously pleased, smiling state. He finds himself remembering for what must be the millionth time this week that he is deeply, _deeply_ in love with one of the most flawed and beautiful people to grace the Earth, and how unfathomably lucky he is to have such a person love him back._)

**Tony Stark  
**i love you 5ever?

(_Loki laughs wholeheartedly, drawing Thor's best pair of reluctantly curious, _What the hell is up with you? _eyes his way and rousing Fenrir beside him when he does. The husky moves to rest his head in Loki's lap as the man types away at his keyboard._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I love you too, darling.

**Tony Stark  
**youre not mad then?

(_Loki smiles._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Of course not. I just don't think it's fair that you're always so concerned about me. :[

**Tony Stark  
**tough shit, babe. you know i'm alllll about you allllll the time.

(_Loki's smile grows wider at Tony's response, and Lord knows his heart won't be able to take this for much longer, Lord _knows_ he's going to have trouble falling asleep for the second night and a row because of this._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**How tragic, fair Romeo.

**Tony Stark  
**i prefer 'romantic', dear juliet. ;)

**Tony Stark  
**is joie de vivre okay with you?

**Loki Skywalker  
**Whatever you like is fine with me.

(_Loki returns his eyes to his sociology notes for the first time in what seems like forever, and after giving the thoroughly scribbled-on, idly doodled-on page a quick skim or two, he supposes that he knows the material well enough to pass his impending exam on human sexuality. The thought of dinner strikes him just as he flips his notebook closed, and when Thor begins to yell expletives at the television, Loki decides that he's just going to make hamburgers tonight. Everyone's happy that way._)

**Tony Stark  
**i really do love you, y'know? and i miss you. so much.

(_Loki just barely catches the message in the midst of his book-packing and sofa-clearing. When he reads it, he feels as if Cupid himself has punched him in the gut and shoved every last one of his damned arrows down his throat, and holy _fuck_, he hasn't felt like this since _high school_. Even _then_ his feelings weren't so strong._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I love and miss you too, Tony, but I'm afraid I have to go for the night. Dinner won't make itself.

**Tony Stark**

well fuck. :( i'll call you before i hit the sheets, okay?

(_Loki frowns slightly, his heartstrings giving a sad, minute twinge of guilt and longing at Tony's words. He briefly racks his memory for something beautiful, for a phrase that will tear Tony apart just as much as it will sooth him, for borrowed words that'll express _exactly_ what's going on inside him before than his own ever could._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Sweet, goodnight. This but of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

(_Would you take a look at how _gay_ he is?_)

**Loki Skywalker  
**That's Shakespeare, by the way.

(_It's several minutes before Tony replies, and when he does, Loki thinks he couldn't possibly love the man any more._)

**Tony Stark  
**my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. the more i give to thee, the more i have, for both are infinite.

* * *

_**Wednesday, October 5**__**th**__** at 10:09 PM.**_

(_This evening, he finds himself rather restless and his mind like a machine of perpetual motion. He's just returned from taking Fenrir on a particularly unnecessary walk, and I use the word 'unnecessary' because the husky didn't actually _need_ to be walked – Loki just wanted the luxury of being occupied, a luxury he no longer has._

_Now he lies in bed, Fenrir draped over and resting on his back as he dawdles around on his laptop. Loki logs into Facebook and discovers that he has one notification and one message, which he makes quick work of investigating. The notification goes first._)

**Thor Skywalker** listed you as his Brother. To approve this relationship for your profile, go to **Profile Review**.

(_Loki doesn't know whether to get sentimental and doe-eyed and _touched _by the request or just write it off as Thor's coincidental remembrance that _oh!_, they _are_ related, which is probably all it really is. He decides to do a bit of both, lamenting over the fact that nothing is ever easy or simple anymore as approves the appeal._

_Then there's the message, which turns out to be a mass conversation between him and the people he loves and hates the very most in the world – his _family_. His cousins and Thor in particular._)

**Freya Skywalker  
**okay, guys. ever since thor posted those pictures on saturday, i've been thinking about how much we need to get together. the five of us haven't all seen each other since last christmas! i mean, really. we used to be together ALL THE TIME.

(That was before the accident_, Loki thinks almost automatically, always so quick to be bitter._)

**Freya Skywalker  
**but seriously. we NEED to make plans soon. i miss us. :')

**Freyr Skywalker  
**I'm with the sister on this one.

**Thor Skywalker  
**omg YES this needs 2 fukkin happen

esp bcuz loki n i liv 2gether now

**Freya Skywalker  
**that's right! :D this is perfect! we can have dinner or go out or something with you guys. :DDD

**Balder Skywalker  
**I think this is a good idea.

**Freyr Skywalker  
**We are known for those~ ;)

(_Really, bitch? _Really_?_)

**Freya Skywalker  
**OKAY. :D

what would be a good day for this? i want this to happen!

**Balder Skywalker  
**Is Friday okay…?

**Freyr Skywalker  
**I'm down with that.

**Thor Skywalker  
**hellz yeah i thnk thats awesome

**Freya Skywalker  
**sweet~!

(_Loki scowls, nasty and dark and _ooh_, so pissed and vile he can taste it on his tongue when he moves his mouth around it. _Of course_ they would include him in this conversation and then promptly forget all about him. _Of course_ his opinions will have no value in the face of theirs. _Of fucking course_._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I can't do Friday.

(_It takes awhile for someone to respond, and Loki is ready to just get the fuck off of the computer and go to bed with his anger like he does almost every other night when Freya finally does._)

**Freya Skywalker  
**oh no! D: why?

(_Loki glares at his monitor, glances at his phone, and swiftly reminds himself _why_ this all matters so much, why he wouldn't change his plans for the world, _least_ of all for his shit family._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**It's my friend's birthday. I promised that I'd be with him.

(_And now Loki just wants to cry, to sob like a baby and bury himself in layers upon layers of blankets and pillows so that he's asphyxiating on more than just his heart. He wants Tony there with him so he can_ go to sleep_, even though he knows the man's presence would have him wide awake and discarding his plans to wait things out until the seventh. He wants _sleep_, wants it more than anything because it's like death without the commitment, and _fuck_, does he get tired of life sometimes._)

**Freyr Skywalker  
**That's more important than spending time with your family? Damn, Keys, tell us how you really feel. ;)

(_That's all it takes for Loki's sadness to instantly turn into red-hot wrath, and suddenly, he's so very much aware of _why_ he hates his family so, why he'd rather eat _shit_ than voluntarily spend time with them, why he'd prefer to live in another state or country or _galaxy_, and why he can't stand _everything_ about _everything_ sometimes._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**YES, it's more important than spending time with you. I personally think it makes a lot of fucking sense that I prefer the company of a close friend over that of people I haven't seen or talked to in months, not that you'd know anything about keeping promises or being there for someone you so-say 'care' for.

**Loki Skywalker  
**I'm terribly sorry if I've confused you. I know that had to be a lot to handle.

(_I'll be honest with you – that was pretty damn harsh. And _yes_, and Loki is kind of-sort of overreacting about this. But you should keep in mind that he hasn't had the chance to speak up for himself to his cousins in such a long time, and the fact that he doesn't actually have to face them over the Internet makes being a bitch so much easier. Plus, this is Tony we're talking about. That makes a _huge_ difference._)

**Freyr Skywalker  
**Calm down, firecracker. I was just joking lol.

(Oh_._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**If you were joking, why aren't I laughing?

**Freya Skywalker  
**stop it, you guys. this is ridiculous.

**Freya Skywalker  
**it's okay that you're busy, loki. we can do this some other time, you know? :(

(_Loki chooses not to answer, just stares at his screen and attempts to will his heart to beat normally and his blood to stop boiling. At this very moment, he'd honest to God prefer _never_ seeing Freyr, Freya, or Balder again, and while that's a bit melodramatic, it's the truth of his feelings and he's always been this way when it comes to his cousins. The only thing that's keeping him from bitching at _Thor_ for this bullshit is the dog on his back and the metaphorical ditch doing so would land him in. _Fuck_._)

**Freya Skywalker  
**i miss you, loki.

(_Okay, _fuck this_. Loki doesn't think twice about closing his laptop and dropping it to the floor, pressing his face into his pillow and letting out a much-needed, incredibly frustrated, impossibly broken _scream_._)

* * *

_**Thursday, October 6**__**th**__** at 11:45 PM.**_

(_He can't sleep. He just _can't_, not while knowing his whole world is going to change in about fifteen minutes. Wait… make that fourteen._

_Because of his wakefulness, Loki has made the genius decision to lie around on the sofa, watch _House Hunters_ nine thousand times in a goddamn row, and play _Robot Unicorn Attack_ like he's an addict and it's a drug. _Yes_, he has class in the morning. _Yes_, he loves, needs, and values his beauty rest like a spouse or a favorite friend. And _yes_, he kind of hates himself for getting so worked up about this – after all, they're only _emotions_, things that don't even physically exist, that just sit up in his head and _happen_ because of the neurons and chemicals that occupy his brain, that manifest in skipped heartbeats and shivers along his skin and baby oceans in his eyes._

_But fourteen minutes has just turned to thirteen, and the butterflies in Loki's stomach are getting pretty violent._

_After beating his high score with 29831, Loki gives into temptation and just _messages_ Tony, because it's 11:48 and he feels like he might start vomiting all over the place any minute now if he doesn't._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Are you awake?

(_Tony takes his time to reply, and it's 11:51 and Loki's going insane when he does._)

**Tony Stark  
**yeah. what are you doing up?

(_Loki sighs, deep and slow and almost aggressive in nature, and isn't it sad that this is the only way he's able to breathe nowadays?_)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Thinking of you.

(_He hits the enter key faster than his rationality can tell him not to, _goddammit_. Loki winces, drives the heel of his palm against his eye, and quickly conjures up a statement that may or may not curtain how obviously lovesick he is right now. It's hard, this whole being vulnerable sort of thing._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I can't sleep. :[ I haven't been able to all week.

(Wow_._)

**Tony Stark  
**i'm sorry. :( is something wrong? did i do something?

(_Tony _would_ be one to think he's caused one of Loki's many dramatic emotional catastrophes, and Loki's not sure whether this amuses or worries him. He bites his lip, reading over Tony's name several times like it's a prayer he's trying to memorize._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**You did everything, Tony. What makes you think that's a bad thing?

**Tony Stark  
**i'm always fucking things up. it wouldn't surprise me. :)

(_The smiley at the end of his statement tells Loki that Tony isn't totally down and depressed about what he's saying, but he does know that the man's not kidding around. If anybody has an inferiority complex more severe than Loki's, it's Tony. He might not let it show very often, but it's there, and Loki would love nothing more than to take it away._

_Well. He'd love to do a _lot_ more than that, to be honest, but you understand what I mean._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I just miss and love you a lot, okay?

(_Two minutes pass. Not a word is said._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Tony? :[

(_Two minutes more, and still – there's nothing. Loki closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe deeply, stares up at the ceiling and counts back from ten, nine, eight…_

_Here he is, twenty years dying and sleep-deprived to a point that's almost unhealthy, sitting in the middle of his living room couch and watching HGTV like a middle-aged housewife, waiting for the one person who's never stopped waiting for him and chilled to the core at the possibility that he's taken too long, that he's much too little, much too late. It's 11:59._)

**Tony Stark  
**i miss and love you too, loki. ever since sunday, i haven't been able to get you off my mind. it's driving me insane… in a good way of course.

**Tony Stark  
**i don't even know what i'm trying to say, really. i can't think straight when i'm thinking about you (haha, get it?). but seriously. i don't know what to do anymore.

(Shit_._)

**Tony Stark  
**i'm in love with you.  
you know that already, but…  
i'm in love with you.  
i'm in love with you.

(_Loki lets out a small, breathy little sob, and before he knows it, he's crying into his hands, cupped against his face like a shield, wishing he were dead because he can't deal with things like this anymore, because he's sick of lying to Tony and sick of lying to himself, because he doesn't deserve to love and be loved like this, especially if it's going to be the greatest thing he'll ever learn or feel or _live_. He doesn't deserve it _at all_. And he can't tell Tony the truth until tomorrow, which… turns out to be today, now._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Happy birthday, my love.

(_He's just awful, isn't he?_)

**Tony Stark  
**fuck, loki. :)  
thank you.

**Tony Stark  
**you're coming to see me tomorrow/today, right?

(_Loki sniffles._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**Of course. I promised you, didn't I? I wouldn't pass this up for anything.

**Tony Stark  
**good. :)  
do me a favor and sleep now. don't worry about what'll happen in the morning. don't even go to class. just sleep for me. please?

(_And then Loki isn't just crying; he's got his face pressed against his arm and he's fucking _sobbing_, biting into the sleeve of his sweater and dampening the thick fabric with his saliva. Tony's words swim in his vision like fish in the sea, and isn't it ironic that he feels like he's drowning now, that saltwater is stinging his eyes, that he can't breathe correctly if his life depended on it? His feelings can be so _hilarious_ sometimes, can't they? _Can't_ they?_)

**Loki Skywalker  
**But I can't sleep without you.

**Tony Stark  
**now you know how i feel.

(_Oh my _God_._)

**Tony Stark  
**i'm sorry, babe. i love you so much.  
do you want me to come over? i'll be there in a heartbeat if you need me.

(_Loki is quickly and instantaneously reminded of the fact that encountering Tony right now would most likely end in them being together, and even though that _is_ what he wants and it _is_ Tony's birthday, it's too early right now. He has to pull himself together._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I think I can manage on my own for awhile… thank you, though.

**Tony Stark  
**of course. :)  
go to sleep, loki. you need to rest. i don't want you feeling like shit on my big day.

(_Loki sniffles again, rubbing the cuffs of his sleeves against his eyes in a feeble attempt to clean his face of his tears. He lets a soft, pitiful whining noise escape him, pressing his fingers against the right side of his chest just to make sure his heart still beats there. I mean, _of course _it would, but it's nice in a sad sort of way to know that life goes on even when you're codependent and dishonest to a fault._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I love you. I really do.

**Tony Stark  
**ditto.

(_Loki forces himself to get off of the computer and go to bed, then, where he'll cry for about forty-five minutes before finally falling into a deep, dreamless sleep. He won't wake up until ten o'clock in the morning._)

* * *

_**Friday, October 7**__**th**__** at 8:09 PM.**_

(_He checks his Facebook a few minutes before he leaves, more as an afterthought than an active, purposeful choice. There he finds three notifications and a message, and, as per usual, he takes care of the notifications first._)

**Balder Skywalker** listed you as his Cousin. To approve this relationship for your profile, go to **Profile Review**.

**Freyr Skywalker** listed you as his Cousin. To approve this relationship for your profile, go to **Profile Review**.

**Freya Skywalker** listed you as her Cousin. To approve this relationship for your profile, go to **Profile Review**.

(_Loki swiftly accepts all three requests, immediately deciding not to get upset or emotional over something so trivial and potentially insignificant. He then moves onto his inbox, toes his shoes on, and checks the time all at once, and his heart gives a little leap at what he discovers there, awaiting his reply._)

**Tony Stark  
**are you gonna be here soon?

(_Loki grins a knowing little grin._)

**Loki Skywalker  
**I'm leaving right now. ;]

* * *

_**Saturday, October 8**__**th**__** at 10:33 PM.**_

(_He's lying in bed, Fenrir curled up beside him, his phone pressed against his ear, and a keyboard at his fingertips. He keeps_ smiling_, again and again and with more jubilance every time he does, and that could be for any number of reasons – the pleasant, throbbing ache at the base of his back, the way his hips send small jolts of pain spreading up his belly and spine every time he moves, the warmth that won't stop blooming in his core, so unusual in its beauty and splendor, or maybe, just maybe, the voice that fills his ear like music, soft and deep and so very very _sweet_ it almost hurts._

"_Are you on Facebook?" Tony asks, completely out of the blue._

_Loki makes a face, opening up a new tab as he replies, "No?"_

"_Get on it," Tony demands with an easy laugh, forcing Loki to smile for the _bajillionth_ time, and _shit_, his cheeks are going to be so sore tomorrow at the rate he's going. "I'm checking out your relationship status, and honestly? I'm offended."_

_Loki's breath catches in his throat when he sees the notification waiting for him. He bites against the grin threatening to explode across his face, and _Jesus Christ_, he's got _tears_ pooling in his eyes and his heart beating hummingbird-fast and his voice leaving him in a choked stutter when he retorts, just a bit weakly, "It's only been a day."_

_Tony chuckles lowly, says, "And what a _great_ day, don't you think?"_

_Loki nods before he realizes that Tony can't see him, rubbing his thumb against his dampening eyes and laughing, "Definitely." He clicks 'Accept'._)

**Loki Skywalker **is in a relationship with **Tony Stark**.

(_There's a moment of silence and stillness, then, during which Loki listens to Tony breathe and Tony listens to him sniffle and pant into the phone. And then Tony sniffs, too. And then they _laugh_, perfectly in unison._

"_Don't cry," Loki says, laughing harder and wiping at his cheeks._

"_You wanna talk?" Tony counters, chuckling wetly through the tiny sob that escapes him. Oh _God_._

"_I love you," Loki breathes, watching in borderline awe as three, four, _five_ notifications pop up in rapid succession, and all because he's _in love_._)

**Loki Skywalker **is in a relationship with **Tony Stark**.

**Kitty Pryde**, **Frigga Skywalker**, and **2 others** like this.

**Kitty Pryde** Finally! :D  
just now

(_Loki lets out a rather uncharacteristic cry of happiness, turning onto his side to pull Fenrir into his arms and kiss the husky's head, nose, neck, ears, and he holds him tightly and doesn't let go, and he listens to Tony repeat after him over and over and over again, and he smiles. All because he's in love._)

* * *

**Didn't I tell you this would be a cliffhanger? **_**Didn't I?**_

**First of all, I want to tell you guys that the next chapter might take awhile. Life hasn't been the easiest lately, but I'm writing my ass off, I promise. Also, I haven't read over this chapter yet, but I will get to that tomorrow, when it's not four in the morning and I'm not exceedingly tired. **

**Second of all, you guys are lovely. I just… gah. I can't express my love for y'all properly without being reduced to a sobbing, screaming ball of girl. You're all too great. I want to give a shout-out to roxypony for being so unbelievably awesome to me, Freelance Wombat for her gorgeous comments, krakatit for her kindness and adorableness, and Ana for being so sweet. **

**Reviews and recommendations are very much appreciated, my loves. The soapbox is always open.**

**- Gabi.**


	17. Because

**Title:** Because.  
**Rating:** M for language and sexual situations. Yeah, I said it.  
**Word Count:** ~26,000.  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, Thor, Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, Hogun, Wade Wilson.  
**Warnings:** AU. Beware of even _more _heart attacks.  
**Summary:** All of this should adequately explain why Loki is doing this, why he's grabbing at Tony, wrapped all around him, moaning and writhing and kissing him like it's the last time they'll ever see each other. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** This is the long-awaited birthday chapter, guys. I apologize for not telling you that I _was_ going to describe this particular event, but I guess it kinda works out for me in terms of shock value. Uhm, I don't have much to say at the moment besides this: _HEED THE WARNINGS_. Heed them like the wind. This chapter and the next are going to be so intense, and I can definitely tell you that you will be vomiting and/or bawling and/or hating me by the end of this one. Also, I've changed Loki's car from a Porsche to an Elantra due to a very wonderful experience I had recently such a car and because I think it's more appropriate. _Also_, I recommend anyone who's interested to listen to _In for the Kill_ by La Roux (preferably an acoustic cover – YouTube is your friend) before/while/after reading this chapter, because I just realized how very fitting it is in regards to Loki and Tony's relationship. Feel free to look up any of the other songs mentioned below as well. Anyways. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Fear is instinctual to all human beings, just as much as, if not more than, it is to animals. Almost every sentient creature knows fear, takes advantage of the fight-or-flight response when in danger, experiences paranoia when confronting the unknown. Humans may have learned to do more than just fight or run away in the face of fear, like break hearts and destroy civilizations and tear themselves asunder, but they aren't above or beyond fear, not _truly_, just like they aren't above and beyond love or above and beyond death.

He's scared. Even after being honest with himself and staying relatively level-headed for the better part of a week, he's _still scared_. Fortunately, there are pros right alongside the cons in this situation. Shall I tell you what they are?

The good news: He's not scared enough to stop what he's doing. Loki has more than made up his mind about Tony, and he _will_ be upfront about his feelings. At least… he's pretty sure he will.

The bad news (which will forever and always be decidedly more important): Loki's thirty-percent certain that something will go wrong tonight. He's lived long enough (and that's not very long at all, really) to know that he has a propensity for getting himself into situations that end in broken spirits. Tony is going to change his mind or Loki will do the wrong thing or they're going to get in a car accident or the world is going to _end_ or buildings will _collapse_ or people will _die_ or –

You get what I mean. Almost every sentient creature knows fear, and although it may be a bit fanciful or farfetched of me to say this, Loki quite possibly knows it better than any of them.

Tonight begins with happiness, though, Loki discovers as he finds himself face-to-face with the birthday boy, who looks just shy of ecstatic when he sees him waiting on the opposite side of the doorway, present in hand.

"_Finally!_" Tony exclaims, grabbing Loki by the wrist and borderline _yanking_ him into his house. Loki lets out a noise that's halfway between a gasp and a laugh, watching his friend kick the door closed behind him in such a hurry it's almost hilarious.

"C'mere," Tony demands, and it's not like Loki has time to protest or move away or whatever, because Tony's just pulling him into one of _those_ hugs, the kind where he's got Loki off of the ground and trapped in the very best of ways, holding him closer than '_close'_ could hope to describe.

"Happy birthday, Tony," Loki chuckles, wrapping his lanky arms around his friend's shoulders and _squeezing_. A shiver of warmth courses through him when Tony squeezes him in return, and oh _God_, if only moments could last forever, if he could just grip this sliver of time tight enough so that it'd never leave him.

"Thank _fuck_, you're here," Tony breathes, lowering Loki to the floor but refusing to let him go, "I was going _crazy_ without you."

"I've heard," Loki hums, playful and teasing and everything fiendishly delightful in the world. He sways bit when Tony pulls him even closer, and suddenly, his body's all hot and electric and his fingertips have gone numb and he can't feel his head anymore (not that he wants to when his heart's the one steering him at the moment).

"Really? I never would have guessed with how much I've seen of you this week," Tony retorts, and even though his words are harsh and reprimanding, his mouth is smiling and his eyes are full of light and love and wanting so _deep_ Loki feels like he could drown in them. Jesus _Christ_.

If he lives through tonight, it'd certainly be a miracle.

Loki smiles in a way that manages to be both shameful and wicked, slides his hands off of Tony's shoulders, down his chest, and to his sides (is he cheeky or what?) and says, "I'm sorry. I was just trying to sort some things ou–"

"_Shh_," Tony cuts him off, tightening his arms around Loki's torso almost possessively. He's leaning in real close to Loki, now, and Loki just _knows_ he's going to kiss him, knows by the constellations that seem to be shining in Tony's dark eyes that their stars are _definitely_ in line, that something cosmic and melodramatic, or just plain cardiovascular and respiratory if theatrics don't cater to your tastes, is happening in accordance with this small, vaguely insignificant little moment. My, my, would you take a look at all the pheromones at work here?

A minty gust of breath hits Loki's lips when Tony laughs, nudges their noses together like an affectionate puppy dog, and says, "I'm just happy I have you _now_."

And then Tony actually kisses Loki, closemouthed and airtight and _safe_ for the most part. Their eyes stay open even as their lips meet, and there's this moment after they part where they just take each other in, their proximity and the heat between them and the unsaid realization that _yes_, something's changed.

"That was okay?" Tony asks, his voice scarcely more than a soft, hopeful murmur. Loki doesn't even respond verbally, just lets his eyes and his face do the work, makes a soft noise of assent in the back of his throat, and lets Tony catch his lips in yet another kiss, and another, and _another_, each one more eager than the last, and before he knows it, Tony is crowding him against the door and _holding _him there (as if he really _needs_ to), kissing him deeply and slowly and so _longingly_ it's almost heartbreaking in the most uplifting way imaginable.

And wouldn't you know that Loki's never been kissed like _this_ by _anyone_ before Tony, and that up until now, he's always only ever known how to kiss back in ways that said both '_yes_' and '_no_' in the same brush of lips and tongue? I mean, it's not like anyone ever showed him how to do otherwise. _Nobody_ ever taught him how to just say '_yes_'. _Nobody_ ever taught him how to love straightforwardly and honestly. And if you thought all this couldn't get any more profound, you're pretty damn far from the truth, my friend. Why do I say that?

This right here isn't like every other time Tony's ever decided to claim Loki's lips, nor is it just one kiss in a sea of identical ones – oh _no_. This is different, _deeper_, something he can feel in his bones just as much as he can on his lips, and Tony's like a typhoon trying to break him up into a million tiny pieces, and isn't it _terrifying_ that Loki's beyond ready to let him do just that? It's fucking _scary_, handing over your heart and hoping its holder won't abuse it, and how peculiar is it that people like to call this sort of blind exchange _love_?

Loki presses into Tony almost too keenly, returning his kisses with only an inkling of the hesitation he ever had before (he can just barely remember it now, the first time Tony ever kissed him and all he could do was sit there and wonder why his skin was crawling so much). Tony smiles and hums against his lips, evidently pleased with his reaction.

"I _love_ you," Tony sighs, pulling away from the door and grinning when Loki follows him like a curious toddler, leans in his face, and drops a brief kiss on his bottom lip.

"And I love you," is Loki's simple, sweet reply. He watches the happiness in Tony's face turn into something less subdued, something more excited in an adorably childish sort of way (which is kind of ironic and funny considering that this is the man who was sending Loki over the moon with pleasure just _moments_ ago).

"You slept last night like I told you to, right?" Tony asks, and when Loki gives him a tiny nod of acknowledgment, he grins, cries, "Great! I've been worrying about you all day, you know? I thought you might've been overworked or sick, maybe, and I was so scared we'd have to stay in or postpone this whole thing altogether, and you know that would have been aw–"

"I'm sure you would have found someone else to waste your time with if I wasn't available," Loki cuts his friend's tangent short, and even though it sure does sound like it, _no_, he's _not_ being a rude, vindictive little bitch (for once). He keeps his eyes, emerald green and full of mischief, on Tony's as he walks around the man to sit on the sofa, smiling impishly and cradling his present in his lap so casually it's nearly comical. Tony tilts his head, silently questioning.

"Someone better than _you_?" he challenges, sauntering over to stand before Loki and planting his hands on his hips (this man can be sassy as _hell_ when he wants to be). "Try me."

And Loki doesn't even know _why_ he says what he does. He really doesn't, not when he's supposed to be vying for Tony's favor (which he basically already has, but let's just pretend like he doesn't in the context of this brand new Fucked Up Situation™). He's not _trying_ to be argumentative or cutthroat or passive-aggressive or whatever, but _fuck_ does it sound like it when he says, "Steve," like the jealous cow he is.

Tony blinks, perplexed, watching Loki for a few careful seconds before asking in the most cautious of tones, "What makes you say that?"

(FYI: In all honesty, Tony knows _exactly_ what made Loki say '_Steve_'. He knows. It's just that he wants to pull everything prideful and envious and selfish out of Loki to prove that _yes_, Loki does have a pocket of self-worth somewhere inside him and that _yes_, his feelings for him _are_ more than just friendly, nevermind the fact that there are better ways to go about discovering your true love's… love, ahem. This is understandable, yes?

Is this a little dramatic and a bit like a soap opera? Yeah, maybe. Does this actually happen to people? Sometimes. Should I go on with the story and stop pestering you with arbitrary questions? Probably so.)

"Nothing," Loki bluffs, always ready to evade questions that rub him the wrong way. He lies because _one_ – it's all he knows how to do in the face of a threat, and _two_ – he's not going to win this semi-fabricated competition by playing dirty and trashing his opponent (which is _Steve_ if you hadn't noticed).

"_Bull_," Tony retorts, smirking in that shrewd, smug manner that seems to be inherent to him in moments like this. Loki scowls.

"It doesn't matter, Tony," he insists somewhat impatiently – knowing full well that _yeah_, it actually _does_ matter – and before the man can argue with him any further, he holds his present in the air and asks, "Are you going to open this?"

(Leave it to Loki to use tactical distraction to his advantage. What a coward.)

Almost immediately, Tony's face brightens to a degree that puts the sun's to shame, points at the small box in Loki's hand, and asks, just to be pretentious, "For me?"

Loki's expression simultaneously conveys both endearment and exasperation, all upturned eyes and pursed, smiling lips, when his hand darts out to grasp Tony's wrist and pull him onto the sofa beside him. He says, "You're the only one getting older here."

Tony laughs freely (_god_, what a beautiful noise) as Loki passes his present to him, jesting, "Twenty-one years and I'm already being treated like a senior citizen." He scoffs. "Kids these days."

"You're too silly," Loki chuckles, his mood rapidly returning to its previously elevated state. He leans into Tony's side and nuzzles at his jaw like a playful kitten, and is it obvious how much more open to affection he is now? I mean, _he_ thinks it is, in his own slightly antisocial, awkward little way.

"That's me," Tony agrees with a smirk. He starts to slide his thumbnail beneath a piece of Skotch tape securing the wrapping paper around his gift before he suddenly goes still and uncertain, casting Loki a sheepish, sideward glance. He doesn't even have to say anything for Loki to know why he's hesitated.

"You can rip the paper," Loki concedes, smiling with a touch of fondness, "It doesn't matter to me."

That's all the permission Tony needs. Much like an overexcited, overzealous child (which he basically still is, in a lot ways), Tony rips the silver paper concealing his present off and practically tears the dark little box open. His face splits into a grin so brilliant and luminous it makes Loki want to cry with glee, and the noise that comes out of the man is just shy of euphoric.

"_Loki…_" Tony starts to say, only to cut himself off and begin prying the watch sitting in the giftbox from its confines. It's got a stainless steel wristband and a shiny black face encased in a silver-plated bezel. Mickey Mouse smiles at him through the watch crystal.

"Do you like it?" Loki asks, watching Tony hold his new wristwatch up to the light to examine it better. An abrupt, ridiculous twinge of anxiety strikes him as the question leaves his mouth, probably because it's a bit unsettling to be so much at the mercy of another person (even _if_ that person happens to be the one who means the most to him).

"I _love_ it," Tony replies, his voice a bit dazed and husky and so full of a naïve sort of wonder. He admires his watch for a few long moments more before turning to Loki whiplash-fast and demanding, "Help me get this on."

When Loki smiles and takes Tony's left wrist in his hands, Tony gets this look on his face like he's about to have a heart attack or stop breathing or do something fatal and/or dramatic, and his eyes go all wide and shimmery with happiness, and his lips twitch ever so slightly, almost like he's dying to laugh or say something or just _kiss_ Loki again, just kiss him on the lips until he can't breathe anymore, and then kiss his face, and then his neck, and then every single part of him for a decade or two, and you know what? Loki's pretty sure Tony's never loved him more, and even though that's a selfish little thought to have, I'm fairly certain you'd be thinking the same thing if you were in his position and Tony hadn't ever looked at you quite like _that_ before, even after a year of being painfully head over heels for you.

"What would you do without me?" Loki jokes, quickly and meticulously fastening Tony's watch around the man's wrist. He immediately decides that he likes the way it looks on him, that he made the right choice when he saw Mickey Mouse sitting behind the jewelry counter at Fossil, Inc., just waiting to be picked up, and caved.

"_Die_," Tony automatically answers, and when Loki glances up at him, his eyebrows raised incredulously, he snorts and adds, "Or I'd just be really depressed and helpless all the time."

Loki laughs, bowing his head a bit as Tony moves to cup his face in his hands and press a tender kiss to his lips, then his chin, then his lips again. He reciprocates the third kiss, draws it out a few seconds longer than is absolutely necessary and watches the way Tony grins like the sun emerging from behind a cloud when they pull apart for air.

"I'm _really_ fucking happy you're here," Tony announces like a breath of fresh air, kissing Loki's left dimple a few times before practically murmuring against his skin, "And I _really_ fucking love you."

"You told me that already," Loki purrs. He snickers when Tony nips at him, swiftly adjoining, "I love you too, Tony."

"_Oh_, I love you, I love you, _I love you_," Tony reiterates in a hyper-affectionate croon, giving Loki one last kiss on the lips, a real smacker at that, before planting his hands on the man's shoulders, sighing a rather histrionic sigh, and asking, "Be mine?"

Where such a question would have made him uncomfortable and ashamed a week ago, it only amuses Loki now. "Of course," is his indefinite, inexplicit, unassuming response. He punctuates it with a smirk.

* * *

"You look nice," Tony comments as he ushers Loki out of the passenger seat of his truck, taking the man's hand like he's some kind of princess or duchess or something. Good _Lord_, they are weird.

"I thought you were above lying to me," Loki quips. He grins when Tony releases his hand to chuck him under the chin and peck a brief kiss to his cheek (he's been doing that _a lot_ in the short half-hour they've been together, hasn't he?).

"I'm serious!" Tony chuckles, winding his arm around Loki's torso and holding him against his side as they walk the twenty-foot distance across the parking lot.

_Really_, Loki is incredibly appreciative of his friend's embrace for reasons including, but not limited to, the fact that any kind of physical contact with Tony is sort of heavenly right now. You also have to consider that he hasn't gone out to a club or a bar with the intention of drinking _ever_ _before_, and that while Tony may be more than comfortable with the night life, Loki is _definitely_ a homebody for the most part. He's only doing this whole drink-dance-live thing in the first place because of the man who's turning twenty-one tonight and has an arm wrapped tight around him as well as his heart hooked on a fishing line. Isn't that novel?

"Oh, look," Tony says as he reaches for the door handle, nodding towards the chalkboard sign propped up next to entrance, "It's oldies night."

"_Goodie_," Loki playfully coos. He earns a rather audacious bite on the ear and pinch to the side for that, and holy _cow_, the two of them might as well just _get a room_ and be done with it all already, but life doesn't work out that way and Loki is an insufferable tease and Tony is (just barely) conscious of the near nonexistent boundaries that lie between them and patience is a virtue and sex doesn't happen if it isn't drunken and kisses are so common and so fleeting and the wine tastes better if you drink it slowly and _life doesn't work out that way_.

"Behave yourself, you treacherous hussy," Tony reprimands, drawing a wholehearted laugh out of Loki in response. The man smirks, leading Loki into the threshold of the infamously extravagant _Joie de Vivre_ and threatening, "I'll bite you again if you don't."

"I wouldn't mind," Loki replies despite himself. He can't help but giggle (_giggle_) when Tony keeps his word and nips at him once more, this time on the tip of his nose.

"You're twenty-one, okay?" Tony says, and after Loki gives him a vaguely dirty look, he pokes his stomach and adds, "With your legs and that face –" he accentuates that by running a finger along Loki's jaw, "– they won't ask any questions."

Loki blinks, unaffected, as the door swings shut behind him (oh _shit_, no turning back now).

"You'll be fine, baby. You're only a month away, anyways," Tony assures him, smiling an encouraging, beautiful little smile that Loki can only just make out in the darkness of the entryway (_Honestly_, it was brighter outside, which is kind of hilarious and unusual when you remember that it's like, _nine o'clock_. Also, who the hell goes to clubs at _**nine o-fucking clock**_? People who stay there for _hours_, that's who.). "Plus, if we do get found out, I'll have us out of here before they can even pick up the phone to call the cops."

"I forgot all about your obscure talent of running from police officers," Loki sighs, "Thank you ever so much for reassuring me."

Instead of scolding Loki or defending himself, Tony just _stares_ at him for a few moments, eyes full of interest and hunger and thinly-concealed amusement, and Loki is seriously wondering _why_ the man's not just walking him out of here right the fuck now (he really, _really_ wants to go, if you hadn't noticed), taking him back to his house, leading him into his bedroom… We all know where I'm going with this, don't we?

But Tony just laughs, leans in close to kiss him on the lips as if to say '_stay here with me_', and murmurs, "Let's have some fun, hm?"

Loki presumes he can do that, despite how very bad he may be at accomplishing that supposedly simple task (and isn't it somewhat pathetic that he's been here countless times before, standing on the borderline between _safety_ and _fun_ while someone else tried to coax him over and he insisted on stasis?).

Eurythmics pulses over the loudspeaker as Loki and Tony move out of the entryway and into the body of the club. Everything is aglow with violet and blue and red, radioactive darkness and acidic air all around, and it might just be the fact that Loki's never been to a legitimate, full-blown _nightclub_ before, but the atmosphere is kind of daunting in a flamboyant, colorful sort of way, almost too thick to breathe and tangible enough to wrap around his throat and head like a sheet of purple gauze.

Tony, however, seems to be extraordinarily (and ironically) at home.

"Alright! First, we're getting some drinks in you," the man all but _announces_, drawing a few pairs of incurious eyes his way as he slings his arm about Loki's shoulders and fixes him with a rather penetrating look, "Then we'll _dance_."

Loki blanches a bit (is that even possible with his complexion?), but doesn't say anything in response. He just lets Tony sit him at the bar (oh god, _the __**bar**_, where there are people just waiting to find him breaking the law because he's not-quite twenty-one, just _waiting_ to sell him beverages that will impede his judgment), which is lined with garlands and purple Christmas lights, like something pulled straight out of an adult's fairy tale.

Easy, Loki. Let yourself feel good for once. Remember Tony. Drink, dance, and remember Tony. _Yeah_.

"What do you want?" Tony asks him. Loki crosses his legs, much like the queen Tony was treating him as earlier (isn't he the most faggoty thing you've ever _seen_?).

"I don't care," is his initial answer, and when Tony's expression takes on a slightly worried air (like '_oh shit, Loki's depressed now, let's shut this motherfucker __**down**_' worried), he smirks, does this sexy thing with his eyelashes that would make most people look high or incredibly stupid, and adds, "Whatever you want is okay."

Yeah, that's right. '_Okay_' is the only word he can use and be telling the truth for the most part (the _most part_ constitutes thirty percent honesty, sixty-five percent bullshit, and five percent advantageous sexual tension).

Tony narrows his eyes at Loki like he's seriously _onto_ him (oh, how fucking _scary_, and did I mention that it's probably a great idea to check out chapter seven's spread on _fake intimidation_ in the latest volume of _How to Flirt Your Ass Off_ right about now?) before turning to the bartender, who looks just a bit amused by the pair they make as he wipes a stripe of the counter clean, and proclaiming, "I'll have two White Russians, thanks. Open a tab for me, will you?"

Loki shoots Tony a dark look as discreetly as he possibly can. A _tab_? A fucking _**tab**_?

The bartender, head shaven and expression puckish, slips his damp rag off of the countertop, looks Tony up and down, and retorts, "For you? Of course."

_Whoa, now_. Is… is this guy _flirting _with Tony? Loki relocates his piercing gaze to the bartender, only to be ignored in favor of _guess who_? Tony Stark, of course.

(FYI: Really, it wouldn't be untrue or misleading of me to say that Loki's been jealous of Tony lots of times in his life before. At first, he was envious of the man's happiness with everything about life and the world, envious of the way Tony could glide through existence like a knife cuts butter. There was also the fact that Tony didn't have to deal with his family, at least not physically.

After Loki became more educated on the subject of Anthony Stark, though, he came to learn that it was both unfair and not worth his time to be jealous of the man for things like this, mostly because they were as insubstantial as the oxygen they'd share when they leaned their heads close enough together to tell each other secrets, like how Tony never actually met anyone in his family besides his mother and father, and how Tony sometimes thought that if he arranged a surprise meeting between himself and the front-end of an eighteen-wheeler, nobody would care or even try to muster up the energy to miss him. That's when Loki resigned himself to envying the man simpler things, like the effortless attention Tony always got and the lack of awkwardness he had around anyone besides Loki himself.

What I'm trying to say is, Loki is jealous of Tony. He loves the man to death, don't get me wrong, but he's not beyond begrudging him.)

Tony tilts his head in the most _non-awkward_, suave way _of all time_, asks, "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

The bartender shrugs offhandedly, a terribly infuriating smirk plastered across his stupid, slightly scarred face. He notes, "You _are_ a regular, Stark."

Loki's left eyebrow slowly travels up his forehead, an obvious expression of distaste, and he suddenly realizes what _perfect_ sense it makes that Tony would be so nonchalant towards the difference between his age and the legal drinking one, not to mention the law in general. If this bartender is right and Tony _is_ a regular, _of course_ it doesn't matter how old he is. Tony's probably had his head hitting this bartop since he flew in from California, and then, he only had nineteen years under his metaphorical belt of life.

It could be because he's rich and semi-famous. Perhaps the bar staff is just foolishly irresponsible. Whatever _it_ is, it's made sure that Tony has never been asked for an ID in _Joie de Vivre_. And you know what that means?

There isn't a goddamn thing Loki has to be worried about, at least not concerning his age.

Tony smirks, obviously won over by the bartender's really-not-all-that-charming words, and says, "I never got your name."

And then, like a ray of sunshine with the only intention of penetrating a few thousand thunderclouds, Tony glances at Loki and gives him an inconspicuous, deliberate little smile, like he _knows_ (he probably does, the shrewd bastard) just how irritated the man is getting with this whole exchange. Loki blinks, just a bit moved, when Tony reaches for his hand and squeezes his fingers, a whole lot like he was getting them squeezed a month (so long) ago, beneath the bartop.

The bartender's expression shifts the slightest bit at the brief break in eye contact between Tony and himself, morphs into something knowing and pleased (dear _God_, why must everyone and their mothers be interested in the ever so fucking _fascinating_ relationship between Tony and Loki?) as he replies, "It's Wade." _Wade_ turns his gaze onto Loki. "And what about you, Mr. Mime? What's your name?"

Loki watches Wade grab a couple of lowball glasses from an illuminated shelf behind the bar as he replies, only a little hesitantly, "Loki."

"No last name?" Wade questions without missing a beat. Loki _blinks_ for what has to be the millionth time tonight (but is really just the third, and when I say '_blink_', I mean '_crush hard indignance and spiteful acrimony between the eyelids in a fairly subtle display of __**ugh**_'), taking his time to reply to the query in a clipped, short voice with, "_Skywalker_. My last name is Skywalker."

Loki reminds himself that it's not a good idea to be rude to a bartender (also known as '_that guy who's handling my drink_') and that Tony exists and is living and bleeding and breathing within inches of him as he watches Wade mix their drinks somewhat clumsily, almost like he's not quite used to doing it. The bartender makes a vaguely amazed voice at Loki's answer, asks, "Like in _Star Wars_?"

He should have been waiting for that.

"Yes," Loki says a bit lamely, and he's suddenly struck with the most awful amalgamation of frustration and exasperation, because isn't it just so fucking _annoying_ when you get asked questions that are _one_ – stupid and unnecessary, and _two_ – leave no room for an answer much bigger that '_yes_' or '_no_'? _He_ thinks it is.

But every ounce of irritation in him goes unnoticed and unexpressed as Wade slides he and Tony's drinks over to them with a genuine-yet-flippant-sounding, "Enjoy!"

There's no hesitation when Tony grabs both glasses, shoves one into Loki's hand (because he _knows_ Loki's not going to take it without being told or forced to), and holds his own up in the air to request, only a bit tentatively, "A toast!"

Okay. Loki would have to be a heart of marble not to be warmed by _that_, and even though he's more than halfway there already, the combination of Tony's puppy dog eyes and oh-so cavalier smile is enough to melt him to his core, to have him smirking just slightly, clinking his glass against the man's, and saying, "To Anthony Stark, the only man who could ever put me through this bullshit and live through the night."

Tony laughs openly in response, drawing Loki's smirk wider across his face. Loki lowers his glass, peering into it for just a moment before meeting Tony's eyes once more and adding, "Happy birthday, love."

A smile usually only found on the faces of infant children and movie stars blossoms over Tony's at Loki's words. He downright _gazes_ at the other man, his eyes all illuminated with longing and love, and Loki doesn't think he'll ever forget this violet-tinged moment or the exact tone of Tony's voice when he instructs him to, "Drink it fast," or the sound of the blood rushing in his ears over the Spice Girls' incessant cry of '_I wanna, I wanna, I wanna_' or the way his hear hammers nails into the inside of his ribcage as he tips his head back and downs his White Russian in one smooth, long gulp (Fun Fact: Loki discovered his apparent lack of a gag reflex at the age of eleven.). The drink burns its way down Loki's throat like sweet snake venom, and Loki gives himself a second to swallow thickly around the taste of alcohol, Kahlúa, and cream before returning his eyes to Tony's face, which is just shy of moonstruck.

"Are we soulmates now?" Tony questions with a smile, grinning playfully over the rim of his now mostly-empty glass. Loki just laughs, leans closer when Tony beckons him to, and smiles against the alcohol and mint-laced kiss Tony presses against his damp lips. _Wow_, that's sexy.

And then all of a fucking sudden, _Wade_ is back and asking, "Ready for two more?"

(Remember that _fuck-you_ letter to the universe that Loki was going to write? He's composing it in his head right about now.)

Tony turns to Wade, his hand wrapped around Loki's wrist like an anchor, and replies, "Sure."

Wade refills their glasses in a rather leisurely manner (oh my _God_), and as he pours, he glances between Tony and Loki with subtly curious, impish brown eyes and asks, "So are you two together?"

Loki should have expected that, too, because _really_? Who _wouldn't_ ask a question like that when he and Tony are sitting at a bar making bedroom eyes at each other and practically on the verge of making out? Such knowledge brings him no comfort, however.

There's this moment where everything is awkward and the air is frosty, then, and Loki kind of feels like he's smack-dab in the middle of one of those intentionally uncomfortable sitcoms where nobody knows how to speak to anyone, or an indie movie where long silences are common and still incredibly cringe-inducing, or a hidden camera show designed to gauge the reactions of normal people being surprise-outed by their friendly neighborhood bartender. Even _Tony_ looks like he's at a loss for words, which is both unusual and sardonic when you consider the man's talent in such areas.

But Loki's got talent, too, remember? (Also, it's not like there should or would be any uncertainty about this – at least, not now, and not to him.)

"Yes," is what Loki ends up answering, and that simple three-letter word sets the world in motion once more and brings a smile back to Tony's face and makes him feel electric again, like love and confidence come in the same pretty package. Wade mirrors the smirk Loki gives him, and suddenly, they're perfectly fine with each other and Loki doesn't see Wade in such a predatory light.

"Just wondering," Wade offers up as a sort of excuse. He moves away from the counter to tend to another group of customers on the opposite side, says, "Don't be afraid to give me a holler if you want another refill."

Tony watches Wade go with a slightly awed, appreciative expression, and Loki takes advantage of the man's inattention by scooting his barstool closer to the other's and smacking an affectionate, attention-grabbing smooch against his cheek. It's almost hilarious how fast Tony turns to him and transforms the kiss into a proper one, an insistent collision of lips, a cupping of jaws and a grasping of wrists and a nudging of noses and an exchanging of breaths.

"Come dance with me," Tony demands once they've parted for air. His eyes are deep and heady with something that looks a lot like wanting, and Loki is just _losing_ himself in them when the man grins and punctuates his statement with a playfully emphatic, "_Soulmate_."

Loki smiles, briefly touching the tip of his nose to Tony's before pulling one hand away from the man, grabbing his drink from the bartop, and replying, "Sorry, but I don't feel quite ready to _rock down to Electric Avenue _just yet."

Tony pouts a bit, tilting his head and whining like a spoiled child, "_Loki_, this is the first time _in my life_ that I can do this legally." When Loki aims a dull, unimpressed look at him, he breathes out a laugh and adds, "Plus, I've seen the way you dance. If you're shy, you really don't have a reason to be."

"I'm not… _shy_," Loki counters a bit lamely as Tony nurses his cocktail, lowering his head and struggling to put his honest feelings into words like he's usually so terrible at doing if he isn't sitting in front of his laptop or confronting the blank face of a sheet of paper. "I'm just not a huge fan of putting myself out there in front of people I don't know."

"I thought you didn't care about all that," Tony muses. Loki can hear the ice cubes clinking at the bottom of the man's glass, so he starts to sip at his drink in a somewhat vain attempt to catch up.

"You know how I lie," he points out, giving a small, bitter smirk. All that bravado Loki had a few minutes ago is _long_ gone now, and all because he sort of-kind of _despises _dancing/singing/showing off any talent he may or may not have in public. Now, can we change the subject, please and thank you?

Tony watches Loki inquisitively as he finishes his cocktail, as his eyelids flutter just slightly and he starts to actually feel his blood buzzing with alcohol. The man waits for Loki to look at him again before saying, "You could just pay attention to me."

Loki laughs despite himself, covers his mouth with the back of his hand and chuckles, "Oh, and you know how awfully _hard_ that is for me to do."

"You _tramp_," Tony scoffs, and Loki's laughter only intensifies in response. The man seizes Loki's hands once more, pressing a firm kiss against his lips and furthering his argument with, "Just pretend I'm the only one there."

"You make it sound so easy," Loki rejoins, and _honestly_, he's only being so difficult because he knows he can get away with it. He can't say much more than that, though, because Tony's kissing him again, _harder_ and _slower_ and _deeper_ than he was before, and he's starting to not mind the idea of tripping the light fantastic quite as much, and this isn't even _about him_– it's _Tony's_ birthday, after all.

"_Please_?" Tony implores, nuzzling at Loki's nose. He's doing that adorable, canine thing with his face and his eyes again, something Loki's decided is the gods' hand-delivered curse to him because of the way it makes him _do_ things like a marionette would after its strings were pulled in all the right ways.

But instead of just _giving in_ without any sort of complaining or bitching (doing so would be characteristic of everything he truly _isn't_), Loki smiles like the fox he is and concedes, "One more drink and I'll dance with you. I promise."

He keeps his word, he does. After slowly (_slowly_) finishing off a third White Russian and rendering himself officially drunk (not _whacked-out_ drunk, but drunk nonetheless), Loki lets Tony drag him out onto the oh-so scary dance floor and forces his legs to get moving to Duran Duran and Cyndi Lauper. It actually isn't that hard to do, especially with Tony guiding him by his hands like a dance instructor and leaning in to kiss his lips or cheeks or jaws or chin every so often, not to mention the haze of alcohol fogging his mind. By the time _Girls Just Want to Have Fun_ (which is possibly the gayest thing in the _universe_ for two grown men to be dancing to) is over with, Loki is winded and Tony is thirsty and Wade is ready to get them even more inebriated than they already are.

"Having fun yet?" the bartender questions as the two of them return to the bar, arms slung about one another's torsos and shoulders.

"More than," Tony replies, his face a bright mask of drunken delight.

Wade grins, amused, crossing his arms, leaning over the bar, and asking, "Another round of the usual, or are you interested in something new?"

"What would you suggest?" Loki retorts with a smirk. He drums his fingers along Tony's side almost subconsciously as he speaks, humming softly when the man squeezes his shoulder and leans over to kiss his temple in a purely affectionate manner (and honestly, sometimes he thinks kisses like _that_ touch him more than anything sultry or sensual ever could).

Wade's expression turns rascal at Loki's question, and he starts to say, "There's a shot we like to call the 'blow job'–"

"Oh, I've heard of those!" Tony exclaims. He reclaims his seat at the bar a little too eagerly, pulling Loki against him (and I mean '_between his totally non-suggestively spread legs and flush against his body_' against him) and crowing, "A round of those would be great!"

"What are they?" Loki asks, a laugh apparent in his voice, as Wade turns away to mix their shots. "And why are they called 'blow jobs'?" He can't even _say _that with a straight face (at least while he's drunk, he can't).

"Kahlúa, Baileys, and whipped cream," Tony chuckles in response, moving his hands to rest against Loki's hips (And _believe me_, in spite of all the friendly making out they've done in the past year, Tony's _never_ touched Loki in a place as risqué and potentially erotic as his hips. _Yeah_ – this is kind of a big deal, even if they aren't really just friends anymore – or _are _they? These are things to be pondered, my dear.) "I have no clue why people call _any _cocktail what they do."

"Are you implying there's worse?" Loki questions, palming Tony's shoulders like he _owns_ the man or something (and he practically _does_, what with all the power he has over him and his heart). He nearly has the audacity to feel ashamed for his relative lack of knowledge when it comes to alcoholic drinks outside the realm of wine (which could really only be considered flattering to his parents, and that's mainly because it's probably one of the few things that liken him to the pure, chaste little Christian boy they wanted him to grow up to be).

"There's the 'screaming orgasm'," Tony pipes. Loki almost dies from laughter right then and there.

"And the 'bald pussy'," Wade adds, sliding two shot glasses over to our favorite lovebirds.

"And the 'cocksucking cowboy'," Tony adjoins, his face splitting into a wide, pleased grin when Loki claps a hand over his mouth and makes a bunch of noises that sound an awful lot like a baby seal.

"Why, though?" Loki asks once his involuntary cackling subsides for the most part. He starts to reach for one of the shot glasses waiting for him, only to get his hand smacked away by Tony.

"Publicity tactic, maybe?" the man replies, and when Loki gives him a somewhat offended look for being rebuffed without any clear reason, he explains, "You're not supposed to use your hands when you drink those."

"How are you supposed to drink it, then?" Loki questions with a nervous little laugh. _Really_, you _must_ excuse his low alcoholic intelligence quotient.

Tony smirks, devious and knowing and so damn _sexy_ it should be illegal. Without a word or a warning, he turns away from Loki, clasps his hands behind his back, wraps his mouth around the rim of one shot glass, and throws his head back like the professional he is. Loki gawks, a bit awed and _very_ surprised, as Tony takes the shot down in a few gulps, after which he plucks the glass from his mouth and drops it on the bartop, watches it spin on its base a couple of times before it settles.

And then Tony redirects his attention back to him, takes hold of his hips once more, and says, "_That's_ how you're supposed to drink it."

_Okay then_.

"Like _hell_ am I going to do that," Loki huffs, just this side of vain. It's not that he's, say, _embarrassed _or anything, because _come on_, guys – dignity in the face of love and inebriation is _so_ overrated, wouldn't you agree?

"_My_ money, Fred Astaire," Tony rejoins, angling his eyebrow in the perfect, puckish way he has.

"All _million_ dollars," Loki counters. He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes in a display of mock-wonder, adds, "And if I'm Fred Astaire, wouldn't that make you Ginger Rogers?"

Tony grins and ever so _boldly_ reaches up the front Loki's shirt to pinch (_pinch_, that _knave_) the skin of his stomach, orders in a voice that's simultaneously oily and adamant, "_Do the damn shot_."

"Will you punish me if I don't?" Loki asks like he's some kind of coquettish schoolgirl, and _goddammit_, this brand of flirtation needs to be _banned_ or _fined_ or something. He smiles and chuckles when Tony trails his cold, teasing fingers down the center of his abdomen like they're completely alone and not in the middle of a fucking bar at almost ten o'clock in the evening, hooks them in his waistband and _tugs_, slight and inconspicuous and so very _provocative_.

"Terribly," Tony replies, his grin growing wide enough to be considered Cheshire in nature.

Loki doesn't doubt Tony for a second, nor does he mind all that much (after all, the only people that will be remembering this are Tony and himself, which isn't that terrifying to bear). So he smiles, pulls his hands off of the man's shoulders, and turns to the bar. Tony's still got a fairly tight grip on his hips as he carefully mimics his drinking procedure, as he bends at the waist and takes the top half of the shot glass into his mouth as elegantly as he possibly can, as he tips his head back and downs the sweet, rich cocktail in one quick, smooth swallow. It's a little too sweet on his tongue, but he's not planning on complaining about it.

And then Tony's suddenly just _right there_ behind him, reaching around him as soon as he's got that silly shot glass out of his mouth to take it from him and drop it against the counter, order, "Two more," and laugh when Loki reaches behind him, just a bit clumsily, and slaps his side.

"Are you trying to get us _completely_ smashed?" the now-younger of them asks, a touch of forced heat in his tone. Loki sucks in a sharp, short, nearly unnoticeable breath when Tony rests his hand at that spot just below his navel and just above his groin, and the gesture is so openly _sexual_, so _possessive_, so _cheeky_ and so fucking (for lack of a better word) _**hot**_ that he's not sure whether he wants to accept it or reject it, and _if_ he wants to accept it, how would he go about doing that?

Would he be forward and nervy, saucy in a way that's both confident and earnest? Would he push into those kisses and touches with a fire in his gut and a deep breath in his throat – or would that make him too loose? Has he already been too promiscuous with Tony, too wanton to be considered normal or healthy in regards to himself and their relationship? Does that matter now that they're drunk? _Should_it matter? Is it too late for such things to matter?

Or would he be passive in his acceptance? Would that be more appropriate of him, or would that make him standoffish and cold and unreliable and capricious? Would that equate to rejection? Would rejection make sense? Would any of these behaviors be in accordance with Loki's personality, with that thing that sits inside him and dictates who he is as a person – passionate, emotional, unstable, contradictory? What would _Tony_ think? (These are _more_things to be pondered.)

Tony pretty much makes Loki's decision for him when he cranes his neck and nuzzles into the side of Loki's face, when he sucks-nips-brushes a warm, sultry kiss against his cheekbone (and really, gestures like these make Loki wonder, completely despite himself, where and when Tony learned to touch and kiss like magma coursing beneath the earth's surface or a lion feasting on its prey). Loki doesn't stop the pleasured sigh that escapes him when Tony rocks against him – so close in such a different, animal way than before – and echoes his earlier taunt of, "More than."

"What a dog you are," Loki laughs a bit breathlessly as Wade gets two shots in from of them. The bartender's brows are angled and his mouth is smirking and his eyes are light in an expression of total amusement, which is absolutely fitting in the face of such blatant sexual tension (and I think we can all agree that Wade is exceptionally representative of _y-o-u_at this very moment).

Tony growls a canine sort of growl into Loki's ear in response, punctuating it with a playful, nearly drool-inducing bite on the lobe. _Word Up_, _What A Feeling_, Gloria Gaynor, and 2Pac later, and the two of them have plowed their way through over ten shots _each_, gifted Wade with way too many chuckled _thank you_'s, severely decreased the likelihood of any kind of physical separation between them ever again, and gotten back to the floor, where Whitney Houston, The Vapors, Elton John, and George Michael push their arms and legs into motion once more, and they're like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers again – or, more accurately, like a man who was born with rhythm in his legs and another who found it much too early and much too fast in nightclubs all over Malibu and with a billion-dollar empire under his thumb to pave his way. None of that really matters, though – not now, when they're both so _present_ and so _alive_ and so _madly in love_ that the past is rendered obsolete every time their atoms collide (is love a chemical reaction?).

"I don't ever want to stop watching you move," Tony hums into the kiss he's pressing into Loki's temple once they've stopped to take another breather. All Loki can taste and smell is alcohol and the man who's nuzzling sweet paths of fire down his jaw, and he can't help but smile like the drunken idiot he is because of it.

"Is this what you wanted?" he questions instead of giving Tony's comment an unambiguous reply, and he watches the man with inquisitive, hazy eyes. He's got his cranium cradled in the curve of his arm, which is resting atop the bar and curled over his head like a canopy.

Tony brings his arm over to hook around Loki's torso, tilts his head much like a curious puppy would, peers into Loki's face, and asks, "For my birthday, you mean?"

Loki smirks, soft and dazed and obviously inebriated, laughs, "Yeah. This is what you wanted, right?"

And then Tony smiles his golden, glowing, _perfect_ smile for the thousandth time tonight, pecks the crest of Loki's cheekbone, and says, "Of course. _You're _here."

"Don't be so romantic," Loki chuckles, the end of his statement turning into a breathy hum when Tony bows his head and catches his bottom lip in a soft, easy kiss.

"I'm being _honest_," Tony insists, leaning back and tugging at Loki's hand until the man raises his head off of his arm and follows him up. He sways in close to Loki like a tidal wave drawn by the moon, adds, "You're the one that I want."

And Loki can't muffle the note of hurt that plays on his heartstrings at that, can't keep himself from scowling darkly and pointing out, "You're drunk, Tony," as if he isn't equally so, and suddenly, he's not so sure about how confident he's feeling, if it was a good idea to _let_ himself feel this way, or if he has the right to say or do anything when his emotions are as changeable as the seasons on octuple time.

"_And_?" Tony counters, and Loki can immediately tell that the man is turning into that mouthy, indiscriminate creature he so often gets to be when he's intoxicated. "Love has nothing to do with my blood alcohol level," he cries, ever the modern-day Romeo.

"Yeah," is all Loki can muster up in reply. It's a resigned, halfhearted reaction, and Tony _must_ be able to notice that, because it only takes a second for his brows to knit together and his mouth to pucker up into a frown and his face to go all pinched and wretched with worry.

"What happened?" the man asks, frantically searching Loki's face. "I said something wrong, didn't I?"

"No," Loki murmurs, his eyes easily finding a spot on the floor to focus on. He's fucking _terrified_, now, terrified that he's on the verge of falling into a quicksand of depression, and all because Tony told him that flippant, lovestruck, not very self-conscious little lie of '_you're the one that I want_'.

"Then what's wrong?" Tony urges, and when Loki fails to say anything or look at him, he's _right there_, kissing the corner of his mouth and all along his jaw and borderline _pleading_, "_Tell me_. I need that frown off of your face."

And what would Loki say, hm? That he wants Tony completely to himself. That he's an awful, selfish bitch and he won't be content until Tony only has eyes for him, even after he's gone nearly a whole year telling the man that he '_just doesn't feel that way, __**sorry**_', and oh _Lord_, let's not forget the fact that this is _Tony's_ day, that it shouldn't matter what Loki thinks or feels or wants even _if_ Tony swears up and down that it does and even _if_ Loki's a human being and his kindergarten teacher told him that every single one of those silly things was special in some way, shape, or form. Would he tell Tony _that_? Would he even _dare_?

The answer to that question is an abridged, slightly distorted _yes_, because even though Loki's a liar, Tony's always believed in him for some reason. Loki turns his face into Tony's, his throat tightening at the way their noses collide and how the alcohol in Tony's breath fans over his features like a summer breeze, and he says, only a little lamely, "I just want you."

"You've got me," Tony retorts, his voice a breathless, warm chuckle.

"_All _of you," Loki clarifies in an emphatic sigh, like that will somehow incriminate him or augment his nonexistent state of guiltiness, when in all honesty, it's _exactly_ what Tony wants to hear (and _goddamn_, you guys – when did this turn into a Hallmark movie?).

Tony just repeats himself – "You've _got_ me." – and it's almost enough to have Loki falling in love with him all over again, have him mistaking coincidences for angels, have him a bit too short of oxygen, have him believing that _yes_ – he _does_ matter, he _is_ important, he _is_ the only one.

And then Tony grins, and this sweet, husky voice comes out of him like thunder dipped in honey, and it takes Loki several delayed moments to realize that the man is crooning into his skin, singing along to the song reverberating from the loudspeakers, nearly too voluble to hear over – "_Roxanne, you don't have to put on that dress tonight._"

"Tony, you're killing me," Loki exhales, leaning his forehead against the other man's and breathing through the sweep of heat that rushes over him.

"Softly with my song?" Tony ceases his singing to quip, and before Loki can respond with a similarly clever crack, or even with a glare, or even with a _smile_, the man's got his arms wound tight around his torso and he's pulling him up and off of his barstool, dragging him back onto the floor like the overeager child he is. Loki doesn't fight him _or_ his inhibitions, just drapes his arms about Tony's shoulders and lets the man lead him, because he's too damn blown away to nuzzle their noses together or nudge his legs into action or start his hips moving without Tony there to help him. He gets his fingers into the long-ish hair at the nape of Tony's neck, listens to the man sing against his temple, "_You don't have to put on the red light, you don't have to put on the red light…_"

It doesn't take much longer for Tony to catch Loki by the mouth again, and _now_, he's kissing him like he was a few hours ago, when Loki was just stepping into his house and when they were truly alone and when Tony wasn't being a lion or a wolf and when Loki actually knew what he was doing and when he could look at Tony without instantly thinking about how nice he'd look in bed and when Tony could do the same and when there was nothing like alcohol to blur their judgment, and even though it's _there_, thick and bitter on Tony's lips when they're pressed against his, Loki doesn't enjoy the taste any less than he did the first time. The intimate, yielding grip he has on the back of Tony's head turns just a tad bit desperate when Tony parts his lips with his own, breathes into his mouth, sucks sweet, short kisses to his lips and licks along the seam of them, hungry and firm and oh, _God _– they could have stayed home and done this, they could have stayed home and started this _hours_ ago and _still_ be going at it now, and the very thought of that has Loki tightening his arms around Tony's shoulders, pulling himself closer to the man, scratching his fingers through his hair, shuddering with excitement.

"You're scaring me, Loki," Tony purrs, moving to brush his lips against the sensitive skin of Loki's cheek. This low, uncontrolled groan escapes him when Loki's teeth scrape at his jowl, when Loki squeezes his shoulder almost painfully hard.

"And why do you say that?" Loki asks. The tail end of his question gets muffled in Tony's mouth, which is so suddenly on his again, and _jeeze_, you'd think they were in a vacuum or something with the way they're on each other.

"I don't know where you are right now," Tony huffs once he can pry their lips apart, the tip of his nose bumping with Loki's as he moves them to the music. His voice is winded but undeniably serious when he says, "You've been gone all week, and now that you're here, you're all over me, and I don't know if you're playing around or you're just doing this because it's my birthday, and I don't mean to upset you or anything, but I'm scared that you're going to walk away once this is all over with, and I'm scared that I'll have to let you go, and I–"

"Tony, _stop_," Loki interjects, and the words come out of him an octave higher that they normally would, because _ouch_ – honesty may be a virtue, but _boy_, can it hurt, _especially_ when it's coming from the person who's got your heart in their hands and they're barely aware of it beating there, _especially_ when it's a mirror specifically designed to show you some of the shittiest things you've ever done as a human being and a friend, _especially_ when you know it's _your_ fault that the truth is what it is, and that it's up to you and you alone to change that _T _into a great big, gratifying _F_.

Tony's eyes go wide and round at the interruption. He lets out a tiny gasp when Loki brings a hand around to cup his jaw, traces his fingertips down the side of his face, gives him a faint, pianissimo smile that has Tony wincing with emotion.

"I'm not toying with you," Loki chuckles, and his smile grows like tree roots burrow into the ground, like stars collapse, soft and breathtaking and ironic in the weirdest way. He watches the way Tony's face pinches when he adds, "I'm done with that."

It takes Tony a few long seconds to respond with more than just an alarmed pair of eyes and a stunned silence, and when he _does_ speak, his reply is inept and uncoordinated and so goddamn _stupefied _it's almost _sad_ – "I don't understand what you mean."

Loki can't stop himself from making this frustrated, impatient sort of noise. He shoves his hand back into Tony's hair and presses their faces together again, says, "_I mean_ I'm not running away this time."

"_No?_" Tony retorts in a sharp, somewhat frenzied tone, his hands squeezing around Loki's sides. Loki kind of wants to cry at the way Tony says that, at the way it makes him look and feel like the most awful person to grace the earth, and _fuck_ – he doesn't even blame Tony for asking such a question, because he _can _be pretty damn dreadful.

"_No_," Loki asserts just a bit frantically, fixing Tony with a look to end _all_ looks. He's pushing their foreheads together, kissing at Tony's lips like pebbles skip upon water, praying to some god of love and kindness that Tony believes him, that Tony didn't choose the most inopportune moment to realize how dishonest and fickle he truly is.

"Really?" Tony asks, softer and not as harshly as he did before.

Loki nods and smiles as eagerly and genuinely as he possibly can (that's something he hasn't had much practice in, mind you). "Yes," he replies, the entirety of his heart in that singular word.

The expression on Tony's face brightens into something magnificent and luminous, something a whole lot like the look he gave Loki when he first showed up on his doorstep. He still looks pretty shell-shocked and awed, but at least he's not outright _disbelieving_ anymore, not when he gets his arms wrapped tightly around Loki's slim form, not when he secures their lips in another heated kiss, not when he _laughs_, joyous and completely despite himself with _glee_, and it's like he's five years-old and just been handed the world or something, and _hot damn_ – it's some kind of terrible-amazing that Tony would think of Loki so grandly, isn't it?

"Please, _please_, _**please**_ tell me I'm not dreaming," Tony says as he nips a trail up Loki's jaw. Loki simply pinches the nape of Tony's neck in response, and Tony chuckles, moors a hand at the base of Loki's back, sucks at the spot where Loki's cranium meets his mandible, and pretty much succeeds at being the most orally talented man in the history of the world (scratch that – _universe_).

"Let's get out of here," Loki manages once he can scoop the remainder of his brains off of the ground. Tony fixes him with this _look_, this puzzled, inquisitive, _Are you saying what I think you're saying?_ _**look**_ that Loki just wants to kiss straight off his face, if only to prove to him that _yes_ – he _is_ saying what he thinks he's saying, that he's saying all that and _more_. He attaches a coy little, "_Please?_" to the end of that imperative when Tony neglects to break his infuriating, dubious silence, kisses the corner of the man's mouth, nudges his hips into his in a somewhat blatant expression of _come the fuck on, asshole_.

That's all it takes for Tony to pull Loki back to the bar, pay off the tab they've been running up for the past two hours, and get them out of there and into the cool October breeze, where they can breathe more than toxic air and vaporous heat. Every step they take is a torturous one simply because they're not connected at the mouth as it's taken, and by the time they're within arm's length of Tony's truck (which isn't a particularly _long_ time, thanks to long legs and sheer enthusiasm), there's this unheard timer going off somewhere in the atmosphere that tells Tony that _yeah_, it's okay to grab Loki and push him against the passenger door (he sure does like to crowd Loki into large, solid objects, if you hadn't noticed, and if this is a possessive, testosterone-driven display of dominance or merely an unreasonably common occurrence is something the jury's still out on), and it's okay pull him up and into his arms like something straight out of a romance film, and it's okay to capture his lips again, hard and insistent and dear _Lord_ – so impatient and so obviously pleased that this is actually happening, that Loki's letting him do this, _begging_ that he do this, clutching at him and kissing him back with none of that annoying, stupid guilt or uncertainty or _no, let's wait_ or _sorry, I can't_. Their kisses are openmouthed and feverish in a way that manages not to be disgusting or sloppy, and Loki's got his hand exactly where it needs to be – fisted in Tony's hair, where it can drive the man crazy just as he does the same to him, with his fingers trailing up Loki's spine like he's a blind man and there are love letters written in Braille on every vertebra, exposing the stretch of sensitive, scarcely-touched skin there to the chilliness of the air, etching crescent-shaped shadows of his fingernails into that zone like it belongs to him, and honestly – that _will_ belong to him very, _very _soon if they keep playing their cards the way they are now.

"Oh, _God_," Tony laughs, breathless and strained, as he moves his mouth from Loki's lips to his chin, sucking and biting like he's marking his territory there. He's still got Loki hoisted in his arms and somewhat off of the ground, then, and it _has_ to be deliberate when he gets a thigh between Loki's legs and anchors him in place, when he pulls a swift, spontaneous groan from his gut, when he traps him almost completely against his truck with his body and his kiss, and _okay_, it's sort of-kind of _beyond_ frustrating to a person as dominant as Loki (I'm being _serious_, too) when the most he can do is rock his hips into Tony's leg and pant and squirm like an overheated dog. Ahem.

"_Tony_," he whines despite himself, far past caring about how ridiculous he sounds, beseeching Tony for mercy like he's some kind of prisoner (which he basically is, in the most mild, pleasing way possible), his fingers tightening in the thick mess of Tony's hair. His tongue presses against this underside of his teeth in something like tension or anxiety when Tony directs his attention to the length of his throat, pale and smooth and begging to be marred by an expert such as he.

"So _eager_," Tony chuckles, the _jackass_. His teeth are like pure sin on Loki's jugular.

"_Oh_, fuck you," Loki groans, digging his scarlet nails into the back of Tony's skull and jerking his head back in one single, sharp pull. Tony lets out this satisfying little growl and eases up on the force he's imposing on Loki, gasping in half-surprise when Loki presses a hard, painful kiss to his lips, bites at his skin, scratches at his nape, practically feral with desire and drunk on more than just alcohol. He's a wild animal, now, emitting such desperate, wanton noises and kissing like it's second nature to breathing and grinding roughly against Tony and doing anything and everything he possibly can to gain the upper hand in this situation, his fingers playing Beethoven against Tony's cranium, his mouth a moaning, snapping thing, his teeth catching Tony's lips between them and _holding_ them until Tony's just _snarling _with lust and bruising and burning and branding Loki wherever his palms decide to touch him.

And then Loki's pushing a hand between them and up the front of Tony's shirt, and it's like they've leveled up or been sucked into some kind of vacuum, because suddenly, oxygen is so much more hard to come by than it was before and the pressure is almost overwhelming and there's this electric current thrumming through them, a circuit that starts where their lips connect, loops around to where Tony's grasping at Loki's spine, continues to where Loki's digits press into Tony's abdomen like they're dialing a telephone number – all positive, hot charge and energy and _movement_. Tony breaks and reconnects that current in a rapid relocation act, moving his hands up to cup Loki's jaws, to brush his thumbs along the man's cheekbones, to bring Loki's visceral fervor to a slow, shaking halt with short, deliberately deep kisses. Loki inhales Tony's air like he's getting high off of it.

"You're going so fast, baby," Tony huffs against Loki's parted, reddened lips. His dark chocolate eyes are blown out and dazed as they flick over Loki's face, take in the flush on his cheeks and the sweat on his brow and the dilation of his pupils and how saliva-slick his mouth is, and _fuck_, Loki can't help it, can't help but let his tongue dart out to taste Tony and alcohol like the perfect cocktail on his lips, and he swears Tony goes fucking _crazy_ right then and there, swears by the groan that comes out of the man and the way he raises his thigh between his legs so goddamn _perfectly_ (oh _yes_, right where Loki's just _dying_ for more friction) that he's driven him insane with a flick of his tongue.

"You expected me to be slow?" Loki challenges in a low, heady tone, and when he lunges forward to attack Tony again, Tony shoves him back into the vehicle half-trapping him, jerks his thigh up once more (that'd be one vociferous, gasping _moan_ and a totally instinctual pelvic roll out of Loki, courtesy of Mr. Stark), and slips his hands down to cage Loki's neck.

"I just don't want you throwing yourself into something you don't want," Tony says, and the inflection of his voice is the only thing that keeps Loki from losing his shit completely and just going the fuck _down_ on Tony (Jesus _Christ_, when did he turn into such a lustful creature?), the only thing that has him look Tony in the black holes of his eyes, the only thing that makes him slow his breathing and his heartbeat down by a few degrees. He's remembering the conscientious part of himself, now, can hear his thoughtfulness echoing inside his head, and he suddenly knows that _yeah_, this particular moment is important for reasons other than the obvious '_Sex is inevitable at the rate we're going_' –

Tony doesn't want to take advantage of him. Despite every other time Loki's ever done that to him like it was absolutely nothing, and despite every other time Tony's ever taken someone else to bed without even _thinking_ about something so crucial – Tony _doesn't _want to take advantage of him. And if Loki has to throw himself under a bus, metaphorically _or_ literally, to do so, he's _going_ to prove for the nth time that _he's_ the greedy one here, that he wants Tony like water, like breath, like _life_, that he'd gone far out of his mind without a Tony to love this whole week, that every moan and pant and touch and kiss that comes out of him is one with meaning behind it, that the only reason his fingers might slip is because of the alcohol that's made them clumsy, that there's _no such thing _as Tony taking advantage of him when he's so willing to let the man fucking _claim_ him it's disgusting, unhealthy, and whatever other adjective you can dredge out of your handy-dandy psychology textbook (another question – is love a psychological condition?).

This impulsive, lovely laugh comes bubbling from Loki's throat, then (he tends to do that, you know – laugh in the face of Tony's error, and _really_, he means it every way but a spiteful one when he does, even if it's not immediately apparent that he's capable of not being a bitch sometimes), throwing Tony into a squall of confusion. Loki's hands turn tender and delicate in Tony's hair, his fingers carefully padding along the backside of his skull and sending tremors racing down Tony's spine, and his eyes are deep and soulful when he leans forward and nuzzles at Tony's nose, the embodiment of gentleness (for now).

"You can be so dense sometimes," Loki whispers, sliding his palms down the highway of Tony's neck and shaking his head ever so slightly, just enough to have their lips brushing together and send tiny sparks flying at the minimal contact.

"I call it careful…" Tony retorts in a hushed pant. Any conviction that might have been in those words melts in the curve of Loki's whip of a body, curling and rolling and surging into Tony's at almost every possible point, every smooth curve and firm plane and jut of bone and depression of muscle, until all they can feel is each other.

"Tony Stark? _Careful_?" Loki taunts lightheartedly (because '_careful_' is probably one of the _last_ words you'd use to describe a person like Tony), and before Tony can shoot him a comeback, he's pressing a soft, openmouthed kiss to the man's lips, susurrating, "I _want_ you,", and smiling at the quiet groan Tony gives him in reply. He sucks at Tony's bottom lip, fits their mouths together like he's completing a puzzle, keeps them bound together with the ropes of his arms wound tightly around Tony's shoulders, and every kiss is longer and damper and deeper than the one preceding it, and every breath is rough and mutual and bounced between them, and every sound that comes out of either of them is urgent and gusty and so full of _need_, and this goes on until they're almost back to the same intensity they had before (never let it be said that it's difficult to get Tony excited and keep him higher than a fucking kite, my friends), until they're the very definition of what it is to be in love – a single soul sharing two bodies, moving and breathing and feeling like they're one organism.

"I _want_ you," Loki repeats in a low moan, his head tipping back against the window of Tony's truck as Tony mouths his way down his neck, a part of him Loki suspects he likes quite a bit. He can't remember a time he's ever craved something or been craved so fiercely, can't remember ever feeling like _this_ – so ready to get opened up and touched in such private places, can't remember ever believing himself or another person to be so _beautiful_, and _oh_, there he goes – "I _want _you, I _want_ you, _I __**want**__ you_."

And it might be because he's drunker than drunk (drunk as a skunk). It might be because he's bipolar II with a possible anxiety disorder. Maybe his emotions and desires really _are _so grand and so deep, and maybe he's simply imagining the magnifying glass distorting and twisting his heart in ways that are both uncomfortable and breathtaking, and maybe love _is_ just as powerful as people like to think it is. Whatever _it_ is or may be, it _is_, and Loki left his forethought on Tony's doorstep, had it kissed right out of him _hours_ ago.

"Take me home, Tony," Loki demands the second Tony's lips find his clavicle and his hands bracket his hips. Tony looks up at him whiplash-fast, a wolfish, hungry expression plastered across his face. Loki's arousal spikes at the sight.

"Which one?" Tony asks, and the question is just so flawless in its simultaneous thought and lack thereof. Loki plants a wet one on him for that.

"Either," he replies against Tony's mouth, grinning at the pleased hum the man emits. "Just take me there."

"I'lltake you there, alright," Tony chuckles, the Colossus of Rhodes once more. He nuzzles their faces together and drops a sucking kiss to the corner of Loki's lips, croons, "I'll take you anywhere you want."

It's corny and romantic and racy and simple and absolutely _perfect_ for Loki. His grin grows as he echoes himself for the thousandth time, only a little lamely, "I want _you_."

"What would you have me do?" Tony asks, and the impish note in his voice tells Loki right off the bat that the man is teasing and toying with him only because he's a pest and a cad and he knows how to get people to say what he wants to hear.

"I'd have you in my bed," Loki purrs, tone low and rich with meaning and fingers curling into Tony's belt loops. He watches excitement flare in Tony's eyes like a match being lit, smirks nearly imperceptibly (even _if_ he's somewhat exhausted of this game).

"You would?" Tony chuckles, and that's when all the energy building up between them peaks again, when Loki turns aggressive and fiery and _needy_, snaps at Tony's mouth, yanks insistently at his waistband, and growls, so suddenly and so _boldly_, "I'd have you fuck me."

Tony blinks hard and fast at that admission, his eyes going all wide and round and shocked, and he gasps-groans, "_Fuck_, Loki," like he's lost the leash on his mouth and can't even fathom the thought of trying to find it after Loki's said something like _that_ (and _damn_ – what a thing to say, huh?).

"_Yes_, please, would you?" Loki rejoins, reaching one hand behind him to tug on the door handle and pull the truck cab open. His expression is both dark and amused, both tigerish and playful, both hypnotic and nearly frightening in its magnitude as he tears away from Tony, refusing to break his gaze, and starts to lever himself into his seat, a process Tony finishes in a rush by grasping his hips and lifting him the rest of the way.

"You're a devil, you know that?" Tony scolds him, leaning up to press an adamant kiss to Loki's lips.

Loki's smirking again at that, kissing Tony back and replying with his smooth, easy laugh, "That's me."

* * *

Tony ends up taking him back to _his_ house, a decision that immediately strikes Loki as both interesting and potentially catastrophic for reasons that will become apparent _very_ soon. That kind of perception doesn't really matter when Loki's being pulled out of his truck and spun around in the air, though, when Tony's kissing his neck and carrying him to his front door, when he's fumbling with his keys and Tony's nuzzling his shoulder and sucking at his nape and pressing against his backside and generally making it exponentially harder for him to get his _fucking door_ open.

"Behave yourself," Loki giggles (he's a giggler when he's drunk and/or manic and/or excited and/or hormonal), finally finding his house key among the not very large number of things on his key ring (house key, car key, old house key, Tony's house key, library box key, Minnie Mouse – six really _shouldn't_be such an intimidating number, but three White Russians and thirteen odd blow jobs definitely seem to make it so).

"After being good for so long?" Tony retorts, digging his teeth into the junction of Loki's neck and shoulder hard enough to have Loki half-stumbling into the door and nearly dropping his keys _again_. Thanks, Tony – you're doing a stellar fucking job of getting Loki to bed when you're preventing him from simply _entering his house_. _**Thanks**_.

"You call your behavior good?" Loki challenges as he seeks out his house key for what has to be the _eight_ time in the past _minute and a half_.

"I call it exceptional," Tony huskily replies. He kisses and nips at the underside of Loki's jaw, winds his arms tightly around his middle, possessive and playful and everything that gets skin crawling and mouths watering.

Loki lets out this sound that's a hybrid between a growl and a moan, roughly jamming his key into its keyhole (_at __**fucking**__ last_, and how about a round of applause for some good-old, unintentional sexual innuendo?) and turning his head to throw Tony a sharp, meaningful look over his shoulder.

"Thor and his friends are in there. _Behave_," he asserts, and the '_for now_' that follows goes unsaid, but not unheard.

Tony's face does that weird thing only _it_ can do, that thing where there's three emotions playing ball on it and a whole other expression entirely being conveyed. This time, his features are a splay of dread, mischief, illumination, and wonder, and he's pressing the side of his face to Loki's when he asks, "You mean we can horrify them with our love? _Vengeance_ time?" He gets a jab in the gut for that.

Loki plants a sideways kiss reminiscent of old Hollywood on Tony's cheek, concedes, "Perhaps," and smirks a wicked little smirk before pushing the door open and suddenly emerging into a world very different from the one that exists outside of Thor White and the Four Dwarves.

The five of them are crowded around the television when Loki opens the door, Hogun being the only person occupying the couch while Thor, Fandral, Sif, and Volstagg dominate the floor. Both Thor and Fandral look up in unison at the arrival, and it's almost _hysterical_ how fast and how much their faces turn into these masks of shock, excitement, and confusion when Loki drags Tony (who is pretty much attached to Loki and a person these people have somehow come to consider to be a _threat_, remember?) into the house. Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun follow their gazes a bit more slowly, but their expressions aren't any less bewildered (Loki? _Happy_? _**What**_?).

"Hey, Loki," Thor blurts, and the greeting comes out of his mouth in an abrupt burst, like he wasn't even expecting himself to eject it.

Loki's eyes land on Thor almost by accident, and he gives his brother this grin that's all alcohol and enthusiasm and not one bit voluntary and replies, "Salutations." It's a far cry from the sarcasm-packed reception he threw at him just _weeks_ ago, and it's even accompanied by a small wave (_wow_).

And then Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun are repeating after Thor like children in a first grade classroom, and even though it's all very sweet and amusing and plain fucking _weird_, the only thing Loki really notices is the fact that nobody's addressing Tony. So he points that out.

"I'm not the only person here," he laughs, and within the next few moments, the puppeteers of the universe manage to get Tony's arms around Loki's waist, his middle and index fingers in the air (deuces, anyone?), and all ten of Thor White and the Four Dwarves' eyes bugged out and surprised. While we're here, might I pick your brain and ask why people are so goddamn _awkward_?

"Oops," Tony snorts, and without warning, he and Loki just start _cracking __**up**_ like that single word is the best joke anyone's ever told ever in the world and ever in life and ever _period_, _ha ha_ ha _ha_ ha, hardee-_fucking_-har har. It's actually pretty nice to act disrespectful and laugh at things that aren't all that funny, but only if you're drunk and about to have mindblowing sex and making the most of the extraordinary opportunity to fuck with your brother and his friends.

As soon as he can stop laughing enough to breathe like a normal, sane human being (everything he _isn't_), Loki turns to Tony, _giggles_ when their noses bump together, and implores him to, "Come feed Fenrir with me?" Because he knows that once his back hits his bed, he's _not_ getting up until tomorrow morning, possibly afternoon.

Tony gives Loki a wry smirk, squeezing his hands around his hips and replying, "Only because I love you."

This sniveling, affronted sort of noise that sounds a whole lot like something Thor would make comes from our dear grade-schoolers, but Loki is much too intoxicated and enthralled with the soulful, lustful way Tony's looking at him to care that much (if at all). He completely disregards their company and leads Tony into the kitchen with his fingers in the man's waistband, a laugh in his throat, and a remarkably graceful skip in his step.

The moment they're somewhat alone, Tony spins him around and claims his mouth again, and he's pushing Loki in the general direction of the fridge, and he has his hands beneath Loki's shirt in a way that threatens to have the man just flying apart right then and there, and _goddammit_, what is responsibility and why does it matter so much?

"Tony, _wait_," Loki laughs once he can pull his mouth away from said man's, pushing against his chest without any sort of conviction. He manages to get the Tony, who's watching him like a hunger-crazed animal, at arm's length after a somewhat brief, intense struggle, and they're both breathing in short pants by the time they're separated.

"Oops," Tony echoes. Loki can't help but giggle again at the quip.

"Be patient, you dog," Loki hums, reluctantly slipping away from Tony to retrieve the bag of dog food sitting under the kitchen sink. He's aware of the man's eyes on him, aware of the fact that Tony's taking in every move he makes with desire and anticipation, aware that he's killing Tony softly when he bends at the waist to reach into the cabinet beneath the sink.

"For you? _Please_," Tony retorts. Loki turns just in time to discover the man leaning against the refrigerator with a bottle of water in his hand, his gaze dark and voyeuristic.

"Only a few minutes. My _other_ pet needs love, too," he jests. He reaches a hand out to brush his fingers along Tony's bicep on his way to the double-doors that will lead him outside, chuckles quietly when he gets his digits squeezed and kissed in an awfully sweet display of affection.

"Don't take too long," Tony whines rather childishly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You know how I get without you."

(They should get married now, right? _Right_?)

Loki doesn't let himself dally _too _excessively on his mission to get Fenrir fed, and the only reason why he dawdles _at all_ is the maternity that sits inside of him like a queen on a throne, demanding he smother his husky – his _baby_ – with love every time he sees him. He practically drowns Fenrir in kisses when he comes trotting over to him, dropping to his knees and totally _bear-hugging_ the dog like he's just as human and sensitive as he is after he gets barreled in the legs and assaulted with fur and saliva. Of course, he doesn't take a dreadfully long time to fill Fenrir's bowl with food, coddle him until he's pretty damn irritated (because food is food and food is king and food is _food_), and tell him goodnight as if he really understands him, because Tony is a very real, very important presence in his mind and in his house, and Loki's blood is _still_ boiling at the thought of the inevitable.

Loki doesn't say anything or make any noise when he walks back in the house, but the second he's in Tony's sight again, he's being yanked into a strong pair of arms and squeezed _very _close and deprived of all his oxygen, and _yeah_, he can _definitely_ see himself getting used to this kind of relationship between them. He semi-accidentally drops the bag of dog food in his hands to the floor, then, preferring to place his palms on Tony's shoulders and hold on for dear life.

It just so fucking happens that _Fandral_ (oh my goodness, _**Fandral**_) walks into the kitchen in the same instant the sack of Blue Buffalo hits the tile, and this moment would be like, _perfect_ if they all lived in a soap opera, because it's just so damn _picturesque_ in such a beautifully awkward fashion, the way Loki and Tony are locked together, the way their lips catch on each other when they break for air, the way Fandral's just forced to _stand there_ and _take it all in_. Loki's not exactly sure how deep that man's feelings for him run, but on a scale from the Thames to the Nile, he's guessing he's somewhere near the Mississippi.

It takes a relatively uncomfortable period of time for Loki, Tony, and Fandral to acknowledge each other's presence, and when it happens, Tony just gives Fandral this cursory, nearly-threatening-but-really-just-kind-of-apathetic glance before turning back to Loki and nuzzling against his temple, kissing a trail down the man's jaw as though he were telling both the person in his arms and the person across the room '_He's mine_'. Loki watches Fandral's face pale and his cheeks tighten the slightest bit in reaction to the gesture, and _suddenly_, he's not so interested in the good behavior he was asking of Tony only seconds before they entered the house.

_Suddenly_, he's remembering exactly what made him such a menace to Thor, Freyr, Freya, and Balder throughout their childhoods – his penchant for troublemaking.

"Hey, you," he greets, this grin that's made of pure _mischief_ splitting his face as he speaks. Fandral's eyes quickly find his, and the man's features take on an ambiguous expression that looks like resentment dressed up as nonchalance trying to pull off amusement. It's actually kind of hilarious.

Meanwhile, Tony's teeth are nipping at his earlobe, and he's asking in a voice low enough to be inside joke-sort of rude, "What are you doing, babe?"

Loki ignores Tony when Fandral says, "_Hi_," in the most dry, dour tone Loki's ever heard him use. The blond starts moving towards the refrigerator, and he's giving Loki and Tony such a wide fucking berth that Loki _has_ to laugh, because he can't help but think of every time he and Thor would get in a disagreement when they were children (stupid, _stupid_ children) and Thor would act like being in the same _room_ with him was tantamount to disobeying the word of _God_.

"_Someone's_ unhappy," Loki notes in his single most dickish act of tonight (so far, anyways, and for the record, Loki has no concept of empathy or remorse when he's drunk or he's manic), draping his arms about Tony's shoulders and peering around the side of Tony's head to survey Fandral as the man pulls the fridge open. The observation has Fandral going still and tense for a moment, has him meeting Loki's gaze with eyes so stormy and irritated it's almost _frightening_ – in a humorous sort of way.

"And who might you be referring to?" Fandral inquires, notes of exasperation and bitterness riding atop the words coming out of his mouth.

"_You_, of course," Loki replies like he's providing punctuation to Fandral's question. He's _still _smiling his devilish smile, _still_ pressing into Tony, his left foot crossed behind his right and resting in a loose en pointe. Tony's lips go static against his cheekbone, and Loki can tell that the man's stopped because he's interested – _not_ because he's indifferent.

Fandral fixes Loki with this severely agitated look that is just all kinds of '_fuck you_' (oh _Lord_, this is exciting, and is it weird that Loki legitimately derives _more_ pleasure from having people criticize and insult him than he does receiving compliments?), grabbing a six pack of beer from the refrigerator and grumbling, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Oh, _yeah_. _Please_ let us all know how very macho and manly you are with your lack of feelings and psychology. _Please_ emulate the behavior of a sociopath and act like you are incapable of responding to situations emotionally. _Please_ let Loki take a metaphorical shit on your face and _laugh_ at you while he does it. You are such a strong person when you stifle your passion – you really are, _cher bébé_.

It's all okay, though. The possibility of no backlash and/or a reaction below Yosemite Sam on the angry scale out of Fandral is pretty much obliterated when Loki looks at Tony, completely fucking serious, and says, "I think he's jealous." And then Tony _smirks_. And then they _laugh_, and _really_, you may think that only people like Emma Frost and Clint Barton can be assholes, but our favorite lovebirds are just as capable as the Brat Pack is of such douchebaggery.

"Excuse me?" Fandral snaps, drawing both Loki and Tony's eyes his way. "Who would I be jealous of here?"

"You tell me, sugar pie honey bunch," Loki retorts, and Tony chuckles almost _cruelly_ against his skin, presses a sucking, entirely too ostentatious kiss to his cheek, and tightens his arms around Loki's body so visibly he should be fucking _shot_ for being so vindictive.

Fandral kicks the refrigerator shut, an action that would normally call for a verbal smack-down if Loki were sober, glaring fiercely at the two of them (the short, pale one with the attitude in particular) and biting out, "Why don't _you_ take a guess?" Because all people can do is throw each other comebacks that guide conversations and arguments straight down the drain.

Loki smirks ever so slightly, asks, "Are you sure you want me to do that? I'm a hell of a guesser."

"_Humor_ me," Fandral replies. His features and his voice are identical portraits of bleakness.

(FYI: When this tale has been told many times over and has become a thing of legend, it should and shall be known that the events that took place tonight are _everyone's_ fault. It's Loki's fault for falling in love with Tony and being an asshole. It's Tony's fault for falling in love with Loki and _being an asshole_. It's Fandral's fault for walking into the kitchen at the precise moment he did. It's Thor's fault for being such an awful, inconsiderate, overprotective older brother. It's Sif's fault for not standing up for Loki, her fellow crusader on the tides of _Fuck You, Thor, You Stupid Bitch_. It's Volstagg and Hogun's fault for not doing a goddamn thing that's useful. It's Wade's fault for providing Loki and Tony with alcohol and not asking for any sort of ID from either of them. It's Howard and Maria's fault for giving Tony a reason to think of alcohol and nightclubbing as an acceptable form of recreation. It's Steve's fault for apparently being an awesome, irresistible person. It's Freyr's fault for kicking Loki in the general direction of the yellow brick road, where you have sex with someone if they smile at you the right way. It's Freya's fault for not telling anyone about the time Loki got bad-touched when she really should have, even if Loki didn't want her to. More than anything, it's Loki's fault for _falling in love with Tony_, _being an asshole_, and _**existing**__ in the universe_, because everywhere he goes, things break and shut down and get heartbroken and angry and disappointed and abandoned, fifty percent of these things being _himself_ most of the time.)

"I think you're jealous of _him_," Loki announces in a spectacularly proclamatory fashion, turning his face into Tony's just a tad to illuminate exactly who _him_ is.

Fandral's expression contorts into one of indignation and distress, and he starts to argue with Loki, starts to say, "Now, why the hell would you say something li–"

"And I don't think you're jealous because it's _Tony_," Loki cuts the man off, watching with a morbid sort of satisfaction as Fandral's cheeks redden the slightest bit. "Anybody in the living room could be standing here with me and you'd _still_ be beating yourself up inside, just because they weren't _you_."

Can I get an '_ouch, motherfucker_'?

"Y-you think you're so _special_, don't you?" Fandral splutters once he can finally get his mouth to form words, and the look on his face is nothing short of appalled when this _laugh_, this provocative, insolent, invalidating _**laugh**_ comes out of Loki in response.

"'_Special_' is the last word I'd use to describe myself," Loki clarifies, his tone only a little bitter as he pulls out of Tony's embrace, taking the man's hands and squeezing them as if to pacify him. "Try '_coveted_'."

Fandral opens and closes his mouth a few times, his expression fluctuating between infuriated and confused and just downright _rejected_ in the course of only a few moments. Loki doesn't take his eyes off of him throughout any of it, just lets Fandral convince himself he can rise out of the sea of bullshit they've been swimming in for the past two or three minutes and solve the mystery of how he could _still_ want to conquer someone after they've just torn him down before taking it upon himself to note, "I told you I was a good guesser."

He knows he's being absolutely awful about this. He knows that he's going to wake up one morning in the near or far future and feel like the biggest asshole to walk the earth because of his behavior tonight. However, he _also_ lacks quite a lot of fucks to give right this instant, and the part of him that has him looking in the mirror and seeing a sinner and a hypocrite and a liar is telling him that getting retribution for every time Fandral turned his '_no_'s into '_yes_'s just because they sound nicer and for every time he's ever been treated like property or a prize to be won or a trophy to be fought over is _so _worth fear of his own reflection. He _also_ has a dreadful tendency to crush the feelings of others and lament over the fact that honesty is a virtue until it offends someone. He _also_ has a rather high blood alcohol level. He _also_ just has a really shitty personality. I could excuse this boy's actions forever, I could.

"Don't let it bother you too much," Loki says when it becomes obvious that Fandral's not going to speak anymore. He gives the man a smile that's two-parts pity, three-parts beguilement, and all-parts arrogance, something that gets an acute, dark glare in return. Normally, Loki might be more affected by such a reaction, but Tony's leading him in the direction of the door, and he's still contaminated with the purple haze of alcohol and adrenaline and lust, and Fandral really, _really_ deserved the ball he just got thrown at him, and _well_ – it just gets harder and harder to sympathize for people after they've been harassing you day-in and day-out for a little over two months, am I right?

In no time, Loki and Tony are out of the kitchen, passing through the living room (where eight eyes follow them like magnetic poles drawn together, intrigued and fascinated and almost _wary_), and rushing down the hallway. The moment Loki has his bedroom door closed, this invisible, impossibly heavy cloud of pressure drops down on the two of them, potent and humid and nearly incapacitating. It occurs to Loki – so fast he almost doesn't notice it – that this is _big_, that when Tony has him by the middle, has his hands gripping his sides hard enough to bruise, has his mouth parting his lips so easily and so forcefully and so _hungrily_ – it occurs to Loki that things _aren't_ going to be the same after this, not after they've both acknowledged their desire to make love until the sun comes up, not after they've said such powerful things to each other, not after they've touched and kissed and tasted one another for _hours_ without regret or even an ounce of hesitation. Everything could either go perfectly right or terribly wrong from this point onwards, and the former outcome definitely seems to be the most likely one when Tony pushes his fingers into Loki's hair and pulls their bodies flush together, sliding his tongue along Loki's top lip like the molten lava lover Loki sometimes imagines him to be.

It's almost too good to feel real.

"I need you closer," Tony murmurs against Loki's mouth, as if that's a wish that can actually be fulfilled when they're pressed together tighter than Vienna sausages. He slips a hand beneath Loki's shirt, his fingers trailing up to the man's navel and snapping the southernmost button of his top open in a way that's both casual and assertive. "I need this _off_."

"What do you know? I do, too," Loki jests, the laugh in his windpipe turning into a deep groan when Tony makes quick work of unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way with only a single hand. He isn't at all surprised when his shoulders hit the door (oh, how acquainted his backside will become with such things following tonight is hilariously, infuriatingly wonderful), but he fears he may suffer a heat stroke and _die_ when Tony pushes him up the wood and attaches his mouth to his neck, sucking and nipping a hot trail of hickeys down the column of his throat. Loki hooks his legs around Tony's waist and winds his arms around the man's shoulders – exactly where they most like to be – like boa constrictors embracing a tree branch, and he finds that every move he makes is almost compulsive in nature, as if he's actually good at this, as if his body was built for this kind of thing, for _Tony_.

And then they're battling again; Tony with his teeth biting everywhere that will have Loki making noise, Loki with his scarlet nails digging into Tony's back and his nape and his scalp; Tony with his mouth kissing Loki's until the man's chest is close to bursting from going so long without air, Loki with the short, sharp little nips he'll get at Tony's jaws and lips. Liquid fire is weaving its way through and around them, and they're like a machine of perpetual motion, each action pushing into another, and _another_, and _**another**_ in a chain reaction that will restart itself every time Tony laughs his honeysuckle laugh or Loki pushes his hips into Tony's just to get that electric feeling all over again (and _really_, it's just so _weird_ to Loki that he'd let Tony dominate him so easily, _especially _because he's is a fighter of a lover nine times out of ten).

It's a relief when Tony turns away from the door, swinging Loki around with such natural capability as he moves with his unusual, beautifully leonine grace in the direction of the bed. He doesn't lower Loki onto the mattress so much as he just _drops _him, crawls over him like a wolf going in for the kill, presses him into the bed with his body and his mouth, and _fuck_, Loki feels like he's being conquered, feels helpless and open in an oddly marvelous way, feels like a demigod and an animal and a wavelength and a heartbeat and an exhale and a nerve ending all at once, and Tony's tearing through him for the _millionth_ time tonight, and he's so fucking _aroused_ he can't even think straight, and he's _never_ felt like this before, and–

"You love me, right?" is Tony's incredibly thoughtless, insanely impulsive, stupor-shattering question. He asks it as he's pushing Loki's shirt off of his shoulders, surging down to mark his skin with his lips, teeth, and tongue and add to the steadily growing constellation of bruises spreading down his neck.

Loki rises onto his elbows to aid Tony in his struggle to get his shirt off of him, bringing his hands up to drag along Tony's broad, muscular back once the article is somewhere on the floor, wherever Tony decided to throw it. Tony's shirt wrinkles and bunches like ripples in a black pond beneath Loki's curling fingers and scratching nails, and Loki lets his head fall back against the mattress so that Tony can claim his throat and the underside of his jaw some more, pushing his pelvis up again and again – he wants to _feel_, goddammit. His reply is asthmatic and taunting and so pompously untrue it's twisted – "Oh, you _wish_."

Tony breathes a laugh that manages to sound both husky and smooth as he pulls off of Loki, earning him a whine and a glare from the man trapped beneath him. The rapidly-building, absurd frustration that threatens to nearly rip Loki apart flies out the window on golden wings, however, when Tony clutches his hips and rolls them into his own in a slow, oh-so _perfect_ grind, drags sharp, stuttering moans from his throat, has him desperate and wanton, has him groaning his name, grasping at his shoulders, begging with his eyes, and all because he wants _more_ friction and _more_ pressure and _less_ clothing and _less_ playing around. Tony throws a toothy smirk his way, practically drinking him in with his gaze.

"Don't lie to me, Loki. You know you do," he purrs, so quick and so eager to play his silly games. He lets one hand stray from Loki's hip to run up his abdomen, to his narrow, lean chest, and _damn_, is it obvious how much and how long he's been wanting to touch him like _that_, so much that he's shivering at the contact. "Don't deny it."

Loki doesn't. That's why he grabs Tony by the back of the head and yanks him down, crushing their lips together in a feverish kiss. A hot blade of pleasure slices through him when Tony moans into his mouth, and he immediately takes hold of the opportunity to thoroughly abuse the man's lips with a plethora of bites and sucks, tugging roughly at the wild, thick hair at the nape of Tony's neck. He smiles, whispers, "Don't ask such stupid questions, love."

What everyone in the universe knows (especially Loki) is that Tony's teasing is in part due to his drunkenness and his naturally playful nature. Loki knows Tony. Tony knows him. They're both familiar enough with each other to be aware of their similarly mischievous, joking, pretentious tendencies. Tony taunts Loki and Loki taunts back – that's just the way things are, the way they have been for quite awhile.

Loki knows that Tony knows that _yes_ – he _does_ love him. Not necessarily in a way that warrants getting married and having a few dozen children and a flawless life together, but he's working pretty damn hard on that, and love is _love_ – a powerful, often misused, four-letter word that maintains the same definition it's always had no matter _what_ dictionary you're looking in.

What fewer people know (and by _fewer people_, I mean Loki, Tony, and those who know how to pay attention, like you guys and people who frequent the library each week) is that Tony loves Loki back in a way that isn't strictly friendly (_no fucking shit_), nor is it even strictly sexual, nor is it even strictly romantic, or intimate, or spiritual, or _fathomable_. Tony knows because, well, he's his own person, and it's kind of hard _not_ to know such a thing when you're on your knees and out of your mind for another human being. Loki knows (is this '_knowing_' thing confusing?) because _one_ – Tony's told him enough times for him to have that thought tattooed to his mind, and _two _– Tony looks at him with _those_ eyes; the eyes he never gives anyone else, smiles at him with _that_ smile; the smile that only Loki's to see, and he drives him around and hangs out in the library (one of his least favorite places) for hours just to _be with him_, and he kisses him and touches him and holds him and helps him, and he'd probably sell his _soul_ for him if he ever needed to. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but it makes Loki feel so, _so_ very _**guilty**_. Why?

Because even though he'd probably do all the same things for Tony ninety-nine perfect of the time, it's not so much out of the ooey-gooey feelings Tony brings out of him as it is out of honor and _obligation_, for he _was_ raised in a world full of price tags and guilt trips and ultimatums (oh, _my!_). Because Loki doesn't feel exactly the same yet, because he hasn't been extraordinarily in love with Tony for the better part of a _year_ (he's only _just_ touched that borderline earlier this week, remember?), and that just really fucking _sucks_ when you compare that to the short thirty days it took Tony to decide he wanted to give his heart to him. Because Tony _knows_ he doesn't feel the same and he's _okay_ with that, and he lets Loki mock and tease him with suggestive looks and kisses that are far too hot to be just friendly. Because Loki feels good about the fooling around if its experimental and lighthearted, but as soon as he knows Tony's _seriously _kissing him (like, _I need to have you close to me forever and ever_ kisses, not _We're bullshitting because we're best friends and this feels pretty nice_ kisses) and _seriously_ hugging him (like, _I'll love you until the end of time_ hugs, not _Come here, my awesome friend _hugs), he _hates_ it because of how much of an ass he becomes once everything is said and done.

Loki loves Tony to the moon and back – that's unmistakable and undeniable. But Tony has always loved Loki so much _more_ in that heartbreaking, soul-wrenching, forever-and-a-day sort of way that likes to have Loki falling apart at the seams simply because of how bottomless such love is.

What even _fewer_ people know (and by _even fewer people_, I mean only Loki and Tony) is that while Tony loves Loki, he _also_ loves his _other_ best friend. That's right. I'm talking about the one and only Steve Rogers.

(Didn't expect _that_, did you?)

If Loki fits with Tony like a puzzle piece (_just right_), Steve sticks to the man like glue (_too much_). Loki has nutritional value and all ten essential amino acids while Steve is full of empty calories and too much sugar and salt to _not _be a hot commodity, and Loki is present while Steve is absent, and Loki is clean and environmentally friendly while Steve is extravagant and ostentatious, and Loki is a prince while Steve is a _god_, and Loki is practical while Steve is a paragon, and where Loki's like the moon in the way he's reachable, _touchable_, Steve is like the stars because he's distant and infinitely more _intriguing _than cold, dark little Loki. Steve doesn't know this, though. Only Loki and Tony do. And that kind of sucks as well. Why?

Because Loki feels slighted and bitter and _jealous_ that Steve is the one Tony _hush, don't tell_,_ deepest darkest secret_ wants. Because even though Loki's the apple of Tony's eye, Steve is the man of his dreams (this is sounding pretty damn schmoopy for a reason, folks). Because even though Loki's the one sharing somewhat inappropriate kisses and touches with Tony, Steve is _still_ reining in such deep, irrational devotion from the man with nothing more than a relatively normal friendship. Because Steve _always_ gets _all _the attention, and for what? Being a _jackass_? Because all Loki wants for Tony is his _happiness_, and either he or Steve can give it to him, but he's so scared and so broken and Steve is too straight and too precisely Tony's friend. Because Tony's a fucking idiot for falling in love with the two most unreliable people in the universe.

All of this should adequately explain why Loki is doing this, why he's grabbing at Tony, wrapped all around him, moaning and writhing and kissing him like it's the last time they'll ever see each other, ready to ride him like a fucking bronco. Because they're drunk and playful, because Loki wants Tony – _all _of him, because Tony loves Loki like Rhett Butler loves Scarlett O'Hara, because Loki adores Tony so fucking _much_, because he's been trapped beneath a lid of insecurity and forced patience and bad luck and _fear_ for far too long, because Steve doesn't love Tony in the right way, _dammit_, because everything will sort itself out (or will it?), and because Loki knows how to keep his promises (or does he?).

They're multitasking, now, Loki's deft fingers busying themselves in the buttons of Tony's shirt while Tony makes it his mission to get Loki's jeans open. They're both breathing each other's air in heavy, deep gasps and locked in a wet, openmouthed kiss, their tongues twisting and twining together and their hips rolling like thunder. Loki's patience abruptly grows short when Tony's thumbs press into his hipbones, and with a muffled growl and a sharp jerk, he's forcing the man up and practically tearing his shirt off of his shoulders, like an animal in heat in his ferocity and his eagerness. Tony grinds him into the mattress again in retaliation, wrapping his fingers around his thin, pale wrists and pinning them above his head in a maddening display of control. _Really_, it isn't at all fair that Loki lacks the physical prowess Tony possesses so easily, but any complaints that might come out of him escape him in the form of moans and groans and pants, and Tony's just _dragging_ those noises out of him with every kiss he plants on him.

"You're so funny, Loki," Tony half-croons, half-laughs against said man's skin, slipping his hands down Loki's outstretched, straining arms and nuzzling and sucking his way south, over the arch of his neck and the dip of his collarbone and the flat of his sternum and the plane of his abdomen, and Loki feels like he just might vomit a snake of fire when he hears Tony's knees hit the floor, when Tony tugs his skinny jeans halfway over his hips, hitches his legs over his shoulders, and noses into the heat of his groin, his lips parting to let his tongue dart out, and _oh_,_**God**_ – he's mouthing at Loki's arousal through the fabric of his briefs without an iota of shame or uncertainty, and Loki _knows_ that the howl ringing in his ears is his own, knows that Tony's groaning (against his _dick_, fucking _**Christ**_) because he's got his heels digging into his shoulder blades, knows that he got himself into a hell of a situation when he decided it wouldn't be so bad to hop into bed with his best friend (because Tony may be _the_ biggest trickster in the history of the _world_ when it comes to sex, so unlike anyone else Loki's ever been with in such a bittersweet way).

"_Goddammit_, Tony," is what Loki manages to choke out once he can get his frontal and temporal lobes to engage in some primitive communication, his voice shooting up several octaves and turning into a frantic whine when Tony licks a stripe up the spine of his erection. He grasps at the bedsheets beneath his fingers, borderline whimpering, "Please, Tony, _please_–"

"Please what?" Tony cuts him off, his tone dark and low and just _broiling_ with lust. Every word he says and every noise he makes is a vibration against Loki's crotch, and _fuck_, Loki's almost absolutely certain that this man is going to drive him insane with his mouth alone before the night is over.

"Please, just _take_ me," Loki pleads, so uncharacteristically desperate and needy. And he _says_ that, says it clearly and candidly – "I _need_ you." Irony is great, isn't it?

Tony raises his head to give Loki _the_ devilish smirk of devilish smirks, leaning forward to drop a slow, bone-melting kiss on the patch of skin below his navel, crawling between Loki's legs and traipsing his lips upwards until they're resting in the hollow of his neck. "Patience is a virtue, baby," he murmurs, teasing and vexatious and just_ cruel_ in the most wonderful fashion.

And then, without warning, it all falls apart. It actually takes Loki a few delayed moments to grasp exactly _what_ is going on, but he becomes aware of how very _wrong_ everything has gone when he hears Thor's voice, when he makes out seven simple, angry words – "_What are you doing to my brother?_"

(Oh, _hell no_.)

There's a half-second after that's out in the air in which Loki's not at all sure what's going to happen next, or even how he _feels_ about the storm that most likely just got set in motion. How does he react to something like that? He's walked in on Thor with other people _several_ times before and just imploded from the sheer lack of fucks he was capable of giving, so he can't really say he knows exactly _what_thought process led Thor to his door aside from the man's possible misinterpretation of the noises he's been making or just a complete absence of respect. And is he too drunk to even flip out about this? And what happened to that semi-understanding he and Thor came to regarding Tony? Is that just another broken not-promise to add to the mountain of other broken not-promises between them?

It's when he sees the look on Tony's face a mere moment before the man is off of him, the physical contact and the intimacy and the _everything_ that existed between them before cut off like a removed umbilical cord, when he realizes with a start that Tony's going to _fight_ his _**brother**_ to make love to him, when the cold air in his room needles at his skin and makes him realize that Tony was the only thing that was keeping him on fire – _that's_ when Loki _knows_ how he's going to react to this. And he's going to react _violently_.

"Excuse me?" Tony laugh-barks, and Loki sits up just in time to see his friend, his _love_, striding up to Thor, who's standing just inside the door like a literal fucking _elephant_ in the room. Loki takes in the image before him and knows he's going to be traumatized by it for awhile, knows by the burning shame that bubbles up inside him when he spies Fandral and Sif peering around the door frame like curious children, when he feels the arousal still curled up inside his belly grow tight in his core, when he examines the broad, angry plane of Tony's back and the icy-hot glint of Thor's clear blue eyes, staring at his friend, _his __**love**_, like he's the devil here to take Loki's soul.

"What are you doing to my brother?" Thor repeats, his voice that rough, high thing that escapes him when he grows irrationally angry.

"What am _I _doing to him?" Tony counters, and good _Lord_, he's _shaking_ he's so upset. He's shorter than Thor by an inch or two, but his presence matches the larger, bulkier blond's when he asks, "What are _you_doing to him?"

"I'm protecting him!" is Thor's response, and it feels like the whole _universe_ is cringing when Tony outright _laughs_, bitter and sarcastic and _cold_, at the man's answer.

"Bull-_fucking_-shit!" Tony retorts, inching closer to Thor without really realizing it. He swings a hand Loki's way, snarls, "You think ignoring him and disrespecting him and caging him in like he's a fucking child is you _protecting _him? You think destroying his ability to trust people and sending him to bed in tears is you fucking _**protecting **__him_?"

(FYI: This is the first time Thor and Tony have _ever_ talked to one another extensively. _Yeah_.)

"Oh, look at you talk!" Thor practically roars, stepping into Tony's space just as the other did him. "All _you're_ going to do is leave him behind once you get what you want from him! It's not like you haven't done the same with other people, you _dick_."

"Do you really think Loki'd be stupid enough to even let me _near_ him if I was like that?" Tony challenges, and his tone is rising in pitch and volume just like Thor's is, and every time he moves, he looks like he's going to just _attack_ Thor like a wild animal with rabies. He cocks his head at the taller man, asks, "Where the _fuck_ have you _been_ for the past year? Not with the person you claim to care so fucking much about, am I right?" Tony jabs a thumb at his own chest. "That was _me_, you jackass! _I _was there for him whenever he needed me. _Where the hell were you?_"

Now, Loki knows that the reason this whole argument is occurring in the first place is because Tony and Thor love him. He knows that. That doesn't make him feel any less _infuriated_ at the fact that the two of them, lovely and dreadful as they are, are talking about him – _screaming_ about him – as if he's not even there. As if he's not being forced to watch and endure this. As if he's not reliving every time he ever felt abandoned by Thor or distrustful of Tony. _As __**fucking**__ if_.

"Don't talk about something you don't know anything about. You don't know Loki like I do," Thor growls, his shoulders setting in a straight, taut line, and Jesus _Christ_, this man is going to physically _fight_Tony if he gets to the point where he's too angry to realize that his fists would be punching Loki in the soul just as much as they'd be ramming into Tony's gut.

"I'm right here," Loki says, voice shaky and horrifyingly quiet. He isn't noticed, unsurprisingly.

Tony scoffs, leans into Thor's face (which is a very risky thing to do, mind you), and argues, "I think I know _all_about Loki, thank you very much. I know what you did to him. I know who he is."

"I've known him my whole life!" Thor cries, his face just _inches_ away from Tony's. He's raising his arms, now, the muscles in his limbs bulging with his wrath, the brightness in his eyes flaring dangerously. "How long have you known him? A _year_? You think you fucking _know_ him after spending _a __**year**_with him?"

That's all it takes for Loki to go off, to lose what little control he had over his emotions. Before he even knows what he's doing, he's on his feet, chest heaving, eyes scorching, throat _burning_ as he yells, animalistic and uncontrolled, "_I'm right __**here**__!_"

He's tired of this. He's tired of being _that_ person, that person that has to be defended at all costs, that person who's just so fucking _wounded_ that they're incapable of making their own decisions as far as everyone else is concerned. He's tired of Thor thinking that he needs his protection because _oh_, he's his _baby brother_ – poor, feeble, unstable little Loki, because _of fucking __**course**_, it's just _impossible_ for him to have grown up and out of that weakness. He's tired of Tony thinking that he's the only person allowed to touch him or care about him, of thinking he has the right to walk all over Thor just because he himself has a propensity to bitch about and completely underappreciate his brother. He's tired of letting himself get pushed around under the pretense of people _caring_ about him, because Rapunzel never got _anything _but a fear of the unknown out of getting locked in a tower for most of her life. He's _tired_.

Thor and Tony go silent at that outburst, both men turning to face Loki with near identical expressions of shock. Fandral and Sif are equally blown away, and the two of them seem to shrink away from the doorway in fear.

"You don't have to talk about me like I'm not _right __**fucking **__here!_" Loki exclaims, his words coming out of him in strangled, high-pitched sobs. He's not crying yet, but he can feel those tears coming when he gets himself between Tony and Thor, pushes them apart like a referee, and asks, "What about what _I_want, since you give so much of a damn?"

There's no answer out of anyone, but Tony looks like a guilt-ridden criminal on trial, and Thor just seems like he's ready to crumble.

After a moment of non-thought (I say _non-thought_ because one could hardly count letting your anger steer you in the right-ish direction as actual _thought_), Loki turns his piercing, wild gaze on Thor and questions, "What do you think you're doing?"

The redness in Thor's face drains at Loki's query, and Thor blinks, stares at his brother almost as if he's disbelieving of the fact that Loki would choose _him_to fuss at first (or at all). "I'm protecting you," he echoes, breathless and tempered.

"From _what_?" Loki retorts. He raises an indignant, incredulous brow for emphasis, gestures to Tony. "From _him_?"

Thor watches Loki for a long, uncomfortable moment, his lips gradually tightening into a thin line, before answering very quietly and very carefully (very unlike himself, I mean), "Yes."

Loki's mouth falls open of its own accord, and he lets out this noise that's somewhere between a gasp and a sob. He's shaking his head and running angry, shuddering hands through his tousled hair when he _screams_, like some kind of wailing, restless spirit, "_I am an __**adult**__!_ And Tony has been nothing but _amazing_ to me!"

That seems to piss Thor off again, because his face gets all stony and he snaps, "I don't think Janet would agree with you."

Oh my _God_.

"I am _not_ Janet Van Dyne or Emma _Fucking_ Frost or Wanda Maximoff or any of your beloved _cheerbitches_, you _ass_!" Loki cries, ignoring the noise Tony makes behind him in objection to his insult (Emma's the only person on the cheerleading squad that Loki and Tony both hate in equal in terrifying amounts – Janet and Wanda are people Tony considers to be friends and Loki considers to be fuckheads). He stares at his brother with the most wrathful of gazes, snarls, "I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me I'm like them. I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me you know me after being gone for _a whole fucking year_." His voice crescendos when he says that. "I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me you think keeping me away from the person I love is _protecting me_. I _dare_ you, Thor! I _dare_ you!"

Thor goes silent again, his head bowing almost imperceptibly in the face of all the righteous anger and abandonment issues and reminders of broken not-promises Loki's spewing at him. His placid reaction only serves to enrage Loki more, because how fucking _dare_ the man come bursting through his door like a missionary or a messiah out to save him and only be half-sure of his task, how fucking _dare_ he not fight back and give Loki a reason to be the victim (because even if he's tired of being the damsel-in-distress, he'll _never_ be exhausted of having reasons to hate everybody).

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Loki shrieks when Thor doesn't say anything. "What the fuck makes you think you can just come in here and conquer and control everything and govern my life like you used to? What the _fuck_ makes you think you can do that?"

Loki's almost too caught up in his verbal abuse of his brother to hear when Tony says his name, so even and soft it's _terrifying_ – just, "Loki," simple and submissive.

Loki turns to Tony with a sharp, frenzied, "_What?_", his demeanor tense and his voice a knife of hardness. He softens a bit when he sees the look on Tony's face, sees the borderline fatigue and the strain and the adoration and the _remorse_ there, streaked across his features like war paint.

"I can't," Tony chuckles, smiling a sad, bitter little smile. He does that a lot, you know – laughs and smiles when he's dying inside. Loki's seen Tony cackle like a madman and condemn the world in the same instant too many times to forget that horrifying quirk of his personality, and that bit of knowledge drives a shard of ice and fear in his heart when he's watching Tony breathe noisily and stare him down so intensely it's painful.

"You can't what?" Loki asks, his voice significantly gentler. Suddenly, he's forgotten all about Thor and the audience they have, and he's turning to face Tony fully, and he's moving closer to the man, and he's peering into his dark, solemn eyes, and he's asking it again, murmuring, "You can't what, Tony?"

Tony shakes his head, grinning his awful grin that does monstrous things to Loki's heart. "I can't do _this_," he says, motioning vaguely with his hands to Loki, to Thor, to the room and the house and the city and the state and the whole _country_ as far as Loki knows, and _goddammit_, Tony's _known_ for running away from situations he can't hack. That's the whole reason why he's never been in a stable relationship for more than a month or two, why he's not in California attending Stanford University or some other equally prestigious and expensive college with his father's money right now, why it's a fucking _universal phenomenon_ that he's stayed with Loki for as long as he has.

And Loki knows now that he waited too long. Loki knows that that thing he's been calling fear for the past year is really just common sense and divine intervention. Loki knows that he was right to believe something would go wrong tonight. Loki knows that _he waited too long_.

He watches Tony with his wide, shocked eyes that Tony's been telling him he loves since the day they met and he was an angel that hit his ass too hard on his way out of heaven. His voice comes out of him in a high, choked tangle when he asks, like he's too stupid to know the answer, like he really thought he had a little worth to him beyond his intelligence and his family of money, like he actually _believed_ every time Tony told him he was _it_ and he was forever, "You don't want me anymore?"

Tony's face contorts into an expression of utter shock at the question, and too fast for falseness, he's got Loki's jaws cupped in his hands and he's pulling him closer and shaking his head almost desperately, exclaiming, "No, no, no! I still want you!" He kisses the crest of Loki's cheek so softly and so privately despite the fact that they've got six scandalized, curious eyes on them. "Don't think I'll ever stop, you hear?"

Loki brings his hands up to rest against Tony's chest, but he's not pushing the man away. He closes his eyes too late to keep his tears (here they come, like a river that's been fighting against the dam holding it in for too long), realizes with a touch of bliss that they roll right into Tony's nose where it's pressed into his cheekbone, whispers, "_Yeah_," with a tiny, strangled sob.

"Good," Tony murmurs, kissing both of Loki's cheeks as well as the tip of his nose this time. He moves his hands to Loki's sides and holds him tightly, as if he's afraid the man's going to fall over if he doesn't, and the smile on his face actually looks somewhat authentic when he adds, just for Loki to hear, "I love you."

Loki can't stop the helpless, ugly noise that comes out of him when he hears that, and he lets his forehead fall against Tony's as he replies, not at all caring that Thor and Fandral and Sif are listening, "I love you, too."

(How's _that _for devotion, Thor?)

"I love you, I love you, I love you," Tony echoes, winding his arms around Loki's middle to hold him to his body. He nuzzles at Loki's nose for a moment, waits for the man open his eyes and look at him before he adds, "But I can't do this. Not now."

Loki thinks he understands what Tony means; he _is_ pretty good at that most of the time. That doesn't ease the ache in his heart, though, doesn't make it any easier for him to let Tony kiss him into numbness and then pull away from him like he used to peel scabs off of his wounds when he was little, and it's almost as if the whole world has fallen out of focus, like everybody's stopped breathing and knowing and _mattering_ when Tony pulls on his shirt and Loki grabs a sweater to shuck over his head after failing to find the denim button-up he'd been wearing earlier.

Then Loki walks Tony to the front, except not really, because _Tony's_ the one guiding _him_ there with an arm slung around his waist and a mouth full of reassurances. Thor moves out of their path without a word or a sound, and Fandral and Sif shift a bit awkwardly in the doorway to let the two of them through, and _holy shit_, Volstagg and Hogun are occupying the hall as well, just as confused and petrified as their fellow audience members. Loki refuses to look at any of them, refuses to acknowledge them beyond dodging their presences, refuses to fly into another rage before Tony's gone (because doing so would only force him to divide his attention, something he wants on Tony and Tony alone for as long as possible).

When he opens the door, Tony's right there to catch his tears in the creases of his thumbs, just like he's always been. He pulls Loki into a kiss that might be sexual and/or passionate and not just _urgent_ if the past five (only _five_) minutes weren't a thing that happened, lets it linger until Loki's quaking with suppressed sobs and making the most awful sniffling noises and fisting his hands in the front of his shirt as if he'd fall dead if he wasn't holding on, and when he pulls away to look at Loki, his eyes are glassy, too (which is fucking _extraordinary_ when you consider the fact that Tony _never_ cries, and if he does, he's wrapped in Loki's arms with his face hidden in his chest, silent and still so that _nobody_ can see him – not Loki, not his father, not God and his angels or the Devil and his demons – _nobody_).

"Don't cry, pretty baby," Tony says, even though he knows Loki hates being told to hold back his tears ever since he developed a theory that said an imperative like that meant a lack of sympathy and a lack of concern. Loki grasps Tony's intentions easily, however, so he doesn't waste his energy getting even more upset than he already is. Instead, he does something _much_ more sensible and beneficial to this whole clusterfuck of a circumstance – he _apologizes_.

"I'm so sorry," is his soft reply, and as the words leave his mouth, Loki realizes that they have much more weight than he initially thought they did. He isn't just remorseful for acting like a child and resorting to tears like he so often does – that doesn't even cover _half_ of his guilt. There's _also_ the fact that he (_Thor_, really, but everything has to be Loki's fault somehow because that's the way the universe works, am I right?) ruined this whole night – Tony's _birthday _night – and there's _also_ the fact that he's really selfish and rude and unstable and has to be protected all the time, and there's _also_ the fact that it's so easy for him to assume that Tony's abandoning him despite that he really _should_ know better, that he _can_ know better, that he _does_ know better–

Loki's not allowed to say or think much more than that, though, because Tony's wrapping his arms around him and just _holding_ him, then, grounding him in the moment like an anchor or a lifeline, and _shit_, there's _another_ reason for Loki to feel like an asshole – Tony wouldn't _ever_ hesitate to comfort him, even if he himself was going through the most intense and horrifying of emotional undertakings. Loki returns the man's embrace almost immediately, squeezing his arms around his neck and pressing their faces together, and he's suddenly struck with the vague sensation of being caught in the middle of a romance movie or some kind of epic love story when he remembers the first time they ever hugged like this, back when trust was a weird thing to both of them, and intimacy was Tony's worst nightmare, and physical contact was something that made Loki sick to his stomach.

"Don't apologize," Tony eventually says, his lips brushing against Loki's and his voice unsteady as he speaks. He lets their noses lodge together and gives Loki a tight, shuddering squeeze, adds, "You've been perfect tonight."

"I've been _drunk_ tonight," Loki starts to argue before he can stop himself, but Tony cuts him off the best way he knows how – with his mouth.

"Love has nothing to do with your blood alcohol level," Tony retorts against Loki's lips, parroting himself with a small, wry smirk. Loki gives Tony a soft laugh for that, leans their foreheads together, returns every kiss Tony gives him with the faint, somewhat unsupported notion that he's not going to be able to do this again. And they stay like that for so long, just kissing each other and fighting their tears, that it seems like _years_ have passed when Tony pulls away from Loki like a thread being plucked from a seam.

"Stop that. You're making me tear up, too," he murmurs, moving his hand to wipe at Loki's cheeks a second time. When Loki opens his mouth to respond, Tony cuts him off and reiterates, "And _don't_ apologize."

Way to hit a nail on the head, huh?

Loki seals his lips and tries to turn their corners upwards, but he only ends up looking even _more_ miserable than he did before, only ends up covering his mouth with the back of his hand to stifle the sob that wants to come out of him, only ends up blinking back the tears Tony hates so much. Tony still entertains him with smile, though.

"I'll come pick you up tomorrow so you can get your car, okay?" the man says, the end of his statement escaping him in a half-croak that threatens to just _kill_ Loki. Tony visibly swallows and shakes his head in what looks like a vain attempt to steal that rasp and bury it back inside him, but he _knows_ Loki caught it, and he can only watch and grin and sigh as the man plasters a hand to his face and lets out a bitter laugh of a sob.

"Okay," Loki replies once he can get the situation in his throat, which is basically just a speech-hindering tangle of sadness and helplessness, under control.

"Just call me when you wake up," Tony goes on, sniffing moistly and quirking his lips into another thin, crooked smirk. "I probably won't even go to sleep tonight."

Loki frowns, pulling his fingers away from his eyes to fix Tony with a semi-disapproving look and plead, plainly and without any room for misunderstanding, "Try to."

Tony's smile softens at that. He reaches out to take Loki's hand, squeezes it, drops it, and says, "Call me." Loki's aware that Tony's dodging an argument because of the hole such a thing would land them in, so he decides to not push the issue of the man's health and sanity out of both respect for his decisions and exhaustion with the world. It's not like it matters that much anyways – they both know how little sleep they're going to get.

"Okay," Loki repeats, bringing his hands up to frame Tony's face and grazing his thumbs along his cheekbones. He takes a moment to kiss at his cheeks, his jaws, his lips, trying, only a bit desperately, to hold onto him just a little longer, because Tony could get in a car accident on his way home, or he could change his mind about him and Montana and America and _living_ between now and the second Loki decides to pick up the phone, or Pepper or Steve or his father could get a hold of him before Loki, and _goddammit_, Loki's never wished for anything more than he's wishing for Tony to stay right now, with the possible exception of a slow, painless, self-inflicted death.

And then Tony's kissing his forehead and telling him goodnight, and Loki's letting the man walk away from him without saying a word, and he's watching him get in his truck, and he's not waving at him, and he's staring after a pair of taillights until they disappear around the corner of the street, and he's been standing in the doorway for such a long time, studying darkness so hard he could ace a course on it, that it's like waking up from an awful dream when he lets himself realize that things don't happen without anything to make them do so, and they're isn't a damn cause creating any events at the moment.

When Loki tears his eyes away from the end of the road and turns to face the interior of his house, which suddenly doesn't feel _anything_ like a home, he's greeted with the _wonderful_ sight of Thor White and the Four Dwarves, all crowded together in one pocket of the living room. They look so perfect and scared and unharmed that Loki actually feels _physically sick _just looking at them, and some invisible waiter is asking him if he'd like a side of blind rage with that unfathomable pain, and he's replying '_fuck yes_'.

What comes out of his mouth then will terrify and disgust him later on, but at this very moment, it feels _just __**fucking**__ right _on his tongue. It escapes him really quietly, like it's some kind of secret he's telling, and it's so blatant and so _awful_ that he should really just lock himself up and never speak to another person again for as long as he lives.

"I hate you," is what he says, and the reason why those three words are the worst Loki could _ever_ say is the fact that he hasn't said them since Thor left for college. He hasn't said them since he decided that he'd rather be cold instead of hot, because heat never earned him the reaction he wanted. He hasn't said them since the _accident_, and the accident reshaped him into a _monster_, into this hateful, self-destructive creature he was only just beginning to shed the skin of, and now he feels it, now he feels himself slipping back into that quicksand of a mindset, now he feels himself loathing Thor like he did the day the man stole his authenticity and his self-worth and his everything, now he feels that urge to rip himself up from the inside, carve his stomach and chisel his heart and refuse to eat and never stop sleeping, and you know _why_ those three _**fucking**_ words are the worst Loki could ever say?

They're true. _That's_ why.

Thor's face takes on his brother's snowy complexion when he hears that, and the look on his face is almost questioning, almost _disbelieving_ in nature. He stares at Loki for a long time, like he's waiting for him to go on or close the door or something, before just asking, in a voice much quieter that what's usual for him, "What?"

He's hurt. That's cute.

And it's almost as if they've switched intensities, because where Thor is usually loud and vociferous and Loki is usually quiet and subtle, here Loki is, screaming, "_I hate you!_", and his face is redder than a tomato and his eyes are dripping with tears, and Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun are all _cringing_ in perfect unison, and Thor is just _standing _there, awkward and silent and everything Loki used to be when Father would criticize him or Thor would put him down or Freyr would take advantage of him or Freya would outshine him.

"What did I ever do to you? I've never taken a _damn_ thing from you, Thor, and all you seem to do is rip everything out of me whenever the _**fuck**_ you want to, at least, when you're not busy being _perfect_ for everybody!" Loki rages on, practically hanging off the edge of the door and stabbing his fingers into his chest for emphasis. He catches Fandral wincing from behind Thor, and all of a sudden, every ounce of anger in him is being directed at him in particular.

"And you!" he cries, his hand flying forward and his index finger outstretched in Fandral's direction. When Fandral gives him a somewhat questioning look, Loki barks, "Yes, _you_," and the blond only has enough time to duck his head before he's getting an earful of unadulterated, long-kindled wrath.

"How fucking _dare_ you come into my house – _my _house – and harass me like you have the fucking _right_ to!" Loki seethes. "How fucking _dare_ you put your hands on me! You think you're entitled to me because I'm your best friend's _baby brother_? Is _that_ what you think?"

Fandral just stares at him, terrified, and you can bet your _ass_ that isn't going to fly – not now, when Loki's so _tired_.

"_Answer me_, you coward! Do you think you're entitled to me?" Loki shrieks, his head pounding with the sheer volume of the words coming out of him. He's _going_ to get a reply out of Fandral if it _kills_ him, he swears.

Fandral starts shaking his head before Loki's even finished asking his question, raising his hands in the universal _I didn't do anything_ gesture and spluttering, "No, no, no, n–"

"Bullshit," Loki interjects, only taking a second to shoot a _go die painfully_, _I hate your fucking soul_, loathing-filled glare of _death_ at Fandral before relocating his focus to Sif, who has made herself as comfortable as she possibly can pressed against Thor's side like she's going to protect the man if Loki spontaneously morphs into a murderous wolf and lunges for him.

"You, too," Loki starts, voice a degree quieter and an octave or two higher. Sif actually has the audacity to glower at him when it becomes obvious that she's the one he's talking to, but that only makes Loki's words that much more apt when he growls, "Oh, you think you're so fucking _tough_, don't you? You think you're hot shit because you can hold your own in a group of cavemen as well as walk all over them, _don't you_, sweetheart?"

"Excuse me?" Sif gasps, narrowing her eyes at Loki, and if the judge asks, _yes she __**did**_ beg for her own murder.

"No, you're _not_ excused!" Loki cries, taking another step towards the pack of fuckasses he's dealing with. "You think you're empowered because you can shock everybody with your pseudo-feminism and your strong, independent, _emotionally constipated _femaleness? You think I appreciate your constant undermining of my brother? You think it's cute to be _rude_?"

He's being a hypocrite and he knows it. That only makes him angrier.

Sif doesn't answer him, just like Fandral didn't the first time, her hard exterior slowly crumbling to reveal a powerlessness Loki only knows too well. Loki decides to let her get away with not confronting him, but only because his throat is _burning_ and it's getting pretty hard for him to see and he's really _tired_, tired of shooting himself in the foot and tired of yelling at brick walls and tired of being unable to articulate his feelings and tired of hating everything and everybody and tired of living and tired of being tired.

There's a long moment where nobody moves, and all you can hear is Loki's hitched breathing and the murmured sounds coming from the television and the chirping of crickets outside, and Loki's still crying and Sif and Volstagg look like they're not far from doing so themselves, and Thor's eyes are fixed on the floor and he looks more lost than he's ever, and really? Loki almost (_almost_) feels sorry for him, for he's absolutely certain that Thor has _never_ been uncertain about _anything_ until now.

And then Loki rasps, quiet enough to be considered a whisper, "Get out."

Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun all gawk at him as if he's just spoken to them in some mysterious, arcane language. Of course.

"Get _out!_" Loki repeats, louder and reminiscent enough of the screeching, harpylike thing he was seconds before he realized how exhausted he was to scare everybody into motion. Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun scramble from behind Thor, hurrying to grab their shoes and the various other things they have scattered all over Loki's (_Loki's_, as in, _possessive of Loki_) living room. Sif takes a bit longer than the three of them to make herself scarce, choosing instead to linger at Thor's side a few seconds longer.

And Loki can tell she's in love with him. He knows she is, knows by the way she tilts his face into hers and kisses his cheek, knows by the way she whispers something to him, something only he can hear, and he's been knowing since the first time he ever witnessed an argument of theirs – only a person in love would say things so terrifying. That doesn't make Loki any less infuriated with her for using his brother as a doormat whenever she pleases, though, because even though it's not that hard for him to do the same, it isn't like he criticizes Thor for fun.

Fandral makes a notable and valiant attempt to avoid Loki on his way out the door, Volstagg and Hogun doing the same (with only the latter succeeding, because girth _is_ a thing that exists). Sif actually hesitates before Loki, however, uneasily meeting his stormy, fatigued eyes and giving him a soft, resigned, "Sorry, Loki."

Under any other circumstances, Loki might respect Sif for that, but she has a thing about disrespecting Thor and she's allowed to have sex with the person she loves, so her thoughtfulness fails to touch Loki as much as they both want it to.

Loki blinks coldly at her and replies, "Me, too." He doesn't have to wait long for Sif to look away and follow after her friends, and as soon as she's out of range, he pushes the door shut and listens to the satisfying _thunk_ that seems to reverberate through the universe when it clicks into its frame.

Loki doesn't look at Thor when he turns away from the door and crosses the living room so he can walk into the kitchen. He's like a zombie when he enters the brightness of the room, his footsteps dragging the slightest bit and every movement a deliberate one. Loki's eyes immediately land on an opened, barely-drunk bottle of water sitting on the counter by the fridge, and he vaguely remembers Tony grabbing that before he went to go feed Fenrir. He has to clean his face at that memory.

Loki is sat on the counter and slowly finishing off that bottle, scrubbing at his eyes with the cuffs of his sleeves, when Thor makes his way into the kitchen, mountainous and solemn like a cumulonimbus cloud on one of those weirdly bright but undeniably gray days of unpredictable weather. They look at each other instinctively, so used to doing that automatically when confronted with one another's presence, and all Loki can see in his brother's eyes is a maelstrom of hurt, and he suddenly feels like screaming again, but he can just see himself falling off of the counter and busting his head on the linoleum floor if he did that, and he's _really fucking __**tired**_, and nothing he'd say would have any meaning, so he opts to do nothing but press his lips to the rim of his/Tony's water bottle and wait for Thor to speak first.

Thor doesn't take his time. He says, "I'm sorry," in his oddly hushed voice, and his apology reminds Loki how to continue being angry for a second or two.

"Are you sorry because you hurt my feelings or are you sorry because I reacted the way I did?" Loki asks. He sounds dreadfully hoarse to his own ears, so he reminds himself to never speak again. The world would probably be a much better place if he stopped talking for the rest of his life.

Thor's face takes on this expression akin to that of a kicked puppy dog, and he inclines his head in Loki's direction, answers, "Both?" It seems like he's unsure of his own answer, but Loki knows that the only thing Thor's uncertain about is his potential reaction and the consequences of being emotionally available to a person as unpredictable and explosive as he is. As he should be.

Loki chooses not to go apeshit on Thor again. He's done with that for the night. Instead, he finishes drinking his/Tony's water, slides off of the counter, chucks the bottle in the trashcan, looks Thor in the eyes, and says, "Give me one good reason to let you stay here after tonight."

Thor looks like he's on the verge of tears when he replies, "I'm your brother."

Somehow, Loki knew that was the response he was going to get.

"Think of a better one and tell me tomorrow. Clean up the living room. I'm going to bed," he says, turning away from Thor and heading for the door. Loki pauses just before he exits the kitchen to add, "And I don't want to hear a thing. One noise and you're out of here."

He means that.

When Loki finds himself back in his room, eyeing the slight disarray of his bedsheets, he realizes with a touch of relief that the sweater he happened to pull on forever ago is perfect for a night like this, a night when the only thing to accompany him to bed is the wailing in his soul and the reign of terror in his head and the awful loop of the awful events of this awful evening streaming through his mind without end. It's large enough for him to feel childish and warm enough for him to forgo blankets and old enough for him to rub the cuffs between his fingertips and remember other times his hands were too shy to be seen. It's exactly what he needs.

So he strips himself of everything but it and his underwear and crawls into bed. And he thinks about things for awhile before he falls asleep.

Loki thinks about Pepper Potts. He thinks about how she and Tony dated before they came to Montana. He thinks about how Tony told him that she was the first person he fell in love with, and he thinks about how he and Pepper are kind of similar in the way they're clever and sarcastic and Tony's closest friends. He thinks that maybe he'd be okay with turning into Pepper one day, but only after spending a good month or two being the love of Tony's life.

Loki thinks about Steve, too. He thinks about how he probably won over him tonight, in some small way. He thinks about how Steve wouldn't ever do for Tony what he did. He thinks about how Steve wouldn't ever cry for Tony like he did. He thinks that makes him the winner.

Loki thinks about Freyr, too. He thinks about what Freyr would think of him being in love with somebody. He thinks about things Freyr's said to him before, things that implied that love was a fairytale and an invention of human beings with the sole purpose of providing a reason to have sex. He thinks about that time they were high. He stops himself right there.

Loki thinks about Freya, then, for she brings him much happier thoughts than her twin does. He thinks about what _she_ would think of him being in love with somebody. He thinks about what it would be like to still be friends with her. He thinks about how he used to French braid her hair whenever he was upset because it gave him something to do. He thinks he'd like to French braid her hair right now.

More than anything, Loki thinks about Tony, though. He thinks about how he gets choked up whenever thinks about him, which is all the time. He thinks about how he's basically been an asthmatic since the day he decided he liked him. He thinks about how when he hears songs on the radio, he imagines they're about them. He thinks about how he doesn't know what to do with himself when he goes too long without seeing him. He thinks about how he sometimes wonders how something as perfect as Tony could possibly exist. He thinks about how he's never had thoughts like this about anybody. He thinks about how Tony touched him tonight. He thinks about how he let Tony touch him like that. He thinks about how he liked it. Loki stops thinking after that thought.

Thor doesn't make a noise.

* * *

**You guys better fucking love me for this – it's three thirty in the morning **_**on a school night**_**. You're welcome.**

**But, really. I'm sorry for taking so long with this chapter. The ending is kind of unedited, but the blatant, precise style of it all is intentional and **_**not**_** just fatigue, I promise. Don't be afraid to point out anything you think needs correcting.**

**I'm going to go ahead and give shout-outs to Arlet (my darling, who this chapter belongs to), Heather, Courtney, Lani, and Toni (if she reads). I love you guys, as well as all of you readers. You make living worthwhile, and I'll get to your comments as soon as I possibly can, I promise. Also, Wade is not a character I'm just going to drop. Expect to see him… sometime later.**

**Comments/reviews and recommendations are thoroughly appreciated. **

**- Gabi.**


	18. Like This

**Title:** Like This.  
**Rating:** M for language and more sexy stuff. Love me?  
**Word Count:** ~26,150  
**Characters:** Loki, Tony Stark, Thor.  
**Warnings:** AU. Beware of even _**more **_heart attacks.  
**Summary: **He kisses him back, and it's the second time he feels genuinely happy today. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN:** This is basically a Band-Aid for you all in response to that last nightmare I cranked out. Songs I would recommend for this chapter are: _Playing God_, Paramore; _If You're Gone_, Matchbox 20; _Lover, You Should Have Come Over_, Jeff Buckley; _Back in Your Head_, Tegan and Sera; _Dance Anthem of the 80's_, Regina Spektor; _Maps_, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Also, this chapter was so named based on some lines/sentences/paragraphs I slipped into it as well as a poem I heard awhile ago, which was titled the same thing and by a man called Rumi. I hope you appreciate this.

* * *

It's drizzling when he wakes up. His whole room looks like it's been painted in shades of gray a few moments after he opens his eyes, and its usual colors of green and blue take awhile to show themselves, to divide themselves out of the mass of stormy ash tinting his vision. It's cold, too, cold and autumn-like and dark and perfect, and his head feels heavy and sliced open where it lies. His stomach is a mess. His throat is dry and stinging. His eyes are sticky with old tears. He is alone.

Loki turns his face into his pillowcase when he remembers the events of last night, memories falling into his consciousness in a slow, painstaking descent. He feels the hem of his sweater ride up his back when he moves, feels the way the air in his room crawls along the base of his spine after his skin is exposed, feels the damp patch of sweat staining his pillow beneath his forehead, and for a long time, Loki just satisfies himself with sensing everything, how full his lungs are when he inhales and how breathless he gets when he exhales and how still everything is around him and how his eyes burn behind their swollen lids and how bad his tongue tastes and how empty his stomach is and how nauseous he feels and how his muscles ache with exertion and how dust mites dance before him when he stares into the feeble light shining through the gap in his curtains and how there isn't a sound to be heard besides the soft snuffling below him and how his heart is so fucking heavy it feels like it's falling out of his chest and through his bed and through the foundation of his house and into the core of the earth, and he's probably going to vomit all over his sheets if he doesn't get himself out of bed fast enough.

But Loki couldn't be bothered to do anything right now. The very idea of movement is making him all panicky inside, is bringing tears to his eyes and discord to his mind, and he realizes with a note of dread that he's _here_ again. _Here_, at the very bottom of his soul; a place he hasn't traversed for _years_ with the exception of last night. Here, he feels completely isolated. Here, he feels cold. Here, he feels hateful and lazy and unmotivated and unthought of and abstract and exhausted like he never will outside of this cage of himself. Here, he's in hell.

Loki _does_ move eventually, though, but only because he has a rather important phone call to make. First, he pulls himself up into a sitting position, and as a reward for managing to do that, he lets himself cry into the neckline of his sweater and leans against his headboard for a few minutes. Then he has to get himself to swing his legs over the side of his bed, a task that proves to be none too difficult once gravity kicks in. As soon as his feet brush the carpet, Loki's got a husky huddling between his knees and seeking his affection, and it takes him quite awhile to put together that because Fenrir's _here_ – in his room and _not_ in the backyard, where he left him last night – Thor must have put him here. That means Thor came in his room while he was asleep.

That isn't a thing that happens in this house. People (Thors, mostly) end up _dead_ that way.

Loki's not exactly sure how he feels about the ghost of Thor funking up his room, so he decides to feel angry. He runs his fingers through the sleek fur atop Fenrir's head, feels the way those coarse hairs slip past his digits and listens to the soft _thump_, _thump_, _thump_ of the dog's tail whacking against the mattress.

After he's calmed himself enough in the smoothness of Fenrir's fur, Loki gives a great big, breathtaking sigh and lunges for his jeans, crumpled in a heap where he dropped them the night before. He wipes at his eyes and presses two circling, gently rubbing fingers into his stomach after he's fished his cellphone out of his pocket, and as he (painfully) crosses his legs Indian-style and beckons Fenrir up to sit beside him on the bed, he reads _12:43 _off of his display screen and realizes that he slept for about fourteen hours. That's like him to do when he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Listening to the dial tone seems like it's the scariest thing Loki's ever done – that is, until he remembers that time he sat in a hospital bed with appendicitis and that time he sat in a hospital bed with bacterial pneumonia and that time he sat in a hospital bed with broken and cracked ribs and a fractured skull and a sprained leg and a shattered sense of identity. That puts everything into the objective sort of perspective Loki absolutely despises, mostly because it gives him a laundry list of reasons to hate himself for feeling things.

And then he's getting an earful of raspy, fatigue-laced, "Hello?", and before Loki's heart can catch up to him, he thinks to himself that Tony actually slept some. That's a thought that's supposed to make him feel better about life, but here comes his literary cardiovascular system reminding him that there are much worse things he could be focusing his attention on, like how he can't speak for whatever reason (and that's _awful_, because he should _always_ be able to talk to Tony).

It's a testament to how well Tony knows Loki when he asks his name after he gets no response. His voice is so husky it's almost sweet, and it has Loki recalling other times he's been on the phone or woken up in bed with the man and he sounded like this, all rough and quiet and human in a way Loki didn't realize was so beautiful until Sunday.

Things have the potential to be normal when Tony has cotton in his throat. That's something to think about.

"Hey, Tony," Loki manages with a wet, ugly-sounding sniff, bringing a hand up to dig the sand and gunk out of his eyes with one scarlet fingernail.

Tony makes this noise that Loki identifies as a sigh after a few seconds of inductive reasoning, says, "Good morning, sunshine," with what Loki can only dream is a smile. That gets the water works going again.

(Fun Fact: Once upon a time, Tony wasn't aware of the fact that Loki was basically a human thundercloud. During this era of little knowledge and awkwardness, he took to calling the man by the ironic and unfitting nickname of '_sunshine_'. You can just about imagine how a reminder like that would hit Loki in exactly the right place.)

"It's almost one," Loki points out, pressing the heel of his palm against his eyes.

"Are you still crying?" Tony abruptly asks rather than replying to or acknowledging Loki's moment of genius. There's a soft rustling over the line then, and really, is it pathetic and/or weird and/or ridiculous and/or particular that Loki's cataloguing these sounds and these details like they're medicine and he's dying?

"Yeah," Loki says, quiet and meek like he hasn't been since he was in high school. When Tony groans, a complaint clearly in the imminent future, he adds in a somewhat more assertive tone, "You know how I am."

"_I know_," Tony sighs, long and deep and just the kind of helpless that Loki hates because he's tired of hearing it everywhere, hearing it in Tony and hearing it in himself and hearing it in everything he once thought was sweet and light and beautiful. Tony takes a lengthy, thoughtful pause before asking, suddenly and without any pretense, "How's your hangover?"

And Loki is sixty percent sure that Tony's rapid switch from topic to topic gets under his skin in a less than pleasant way, but he chooses to not pay attention to his customary irritation and instead dwells on how much he misses Tony's presence and his scent and his touch and his _everything_ like Penelope did Odysseus, and as he revels in the horrible-amazing feeling of being in take-your-breath-away love, he wonders why positivity is so easy to come by where Tony's concerned and how he hasn't realized how deep his devotion for this man has been running until now. Both questions are easy to answer when you consider the fact that _one_ – Tony is the sole person that makes Loki unconditionally happy, and even when he doesn't, Loki's not fucking _terrified_ of being less than content around him (as opposed to other people, who generally make Loki feel like he has to safeguard his emotions twenty-four-seven), and _two_ – fear has been the main culprit behind every crime Loki's committed since he was old enough to feel such a thing.

"Perfectly awful," is what he says in reply to Tony's inquiry. Fenrir paws his way into his lap like a too-large child in pursuit of a parent's attention, then, and Loki doubles over and wraps his torso around the husky in an attempt to appease him.

"I'm sorry, babe," Tony half-whines, bringing a tiny, gratified smile to Loki's face. _Of course_, he _has_ to fuck that up by insisting that, "That's my fault," and even though he _is _slightly correct in his assessment of this whole hangover situation, Loki's _not_ going to be content with letting him feel guilty for something so _stupid_.

"Hush, you," Loki sighs, peering through the grove of fur he has his face buried in. "You wanted us to get drunk for your birthday, so we did. Don't beat yourself up for that." He's speaking in this mildly irritated that he only ever uses on Tony, and the reason _why_ he only ever uses it on Tony is because Tony's the only person who's proven himself to be worthy of such respect, the only person who can somewhat tame Loki's quick temper as easily as he can provoke it.

"But you're in pain," Tony argues. He's being childish – a good sign (and by _good sign_, I mean _indicator of normalcy_).

"I'll get over it," Loki half-murmurs into his mouthpiece. He listens to Fenrir's stomach gurgle and lets the sound of it soothe him the slightest bit, shifts his cellphone against his ear and says, "I'm in college. I'm _supposed_ to drink."

"That doesn't mean I can't feel bad about causing you pain," Tony grumbles, and Loki is abruptly aware of the rather infuriating fact that Tony is in one of _those_ moods, those moods where he's even more self-deprecating and juvenile than he normally is, those moods that tend to lead to reckless, circular behavior and melodrama of the very highest degree, and Loki thinks that the events of last night most likely led Tony to behave the way he is right now, and he's suddenly posed with the question of how to get the man to see things realistically, and _Jesus Christ_, they're both so narcissistic that it's fucking _extraordinary_ that they're capable of acknowledging each other.

"You think that last night was your fault, don't you?" Loki asks, his voice cool and even enough to belie just how frustrated he feels, just how much of a hypocrite he's being.

Tony doesn't hesitate to call him out on the latter, though, and he sounds incredibly affronted when he retorts, rude and so _him_ it's hard (but not _too_ hard, considering that the two of them have been just friends a lot longer than they've been Romeo and Juliet) for Loki to get exceptionally angry, "And you don't think the same of yourself?"

At first, Loki is so blindsided by Tony's question that he doesn't even know what to say or how to respond, so he just _sits_ there, his cheek pressed into Fenrir's fur and his brow all furrowed and his body bent in half and his mouth hanging open, until a suitable, sensible answer finally comes to him. "Of _course_ I do, To–"

"Loki, it was _my_ fault," Tony cuts him off before he can even get into the thick of his argument, and Loki has to forcibly press his lips together to keep himself from interrupting Tony in return. _Believe _me, it's not at all unusual for the two of them to be bickering after only a minute or two on the phone, and seeing that the both of them have highly argumentative, self-important personalities, interjections are a pretty fucking common occurrence during their quarrels.

"You didn't even want to drink last night, and _I_ made you," Tony continues, no longer the quiet, raspy creature he was before. "_I _took you back to your place instead of mine. _I_ talked back to Thor. It was _my_ fault."

That's the moment when Loki _has_ to cut in. Tony's mention of Thor is sending red flags flying and alarms blaring in his head, and suddenly, he's that oh-so familiar game of Operation again, screaming because he's been touched in the wrong spot.

"Tony, _no_," he snaps, raising his head off of Fenrir's body and sitting up straight to glare at the space before him, which happens to be occupied by an insignificant multitude of books insignificantly sitting on an insignificant shelf. "You didn't know Thor and the Jackass Four were going to be in my house and fucking everything up, and it was _your_ birthday – _not_ mine. It shouldn't have mattered what I wanted."

"But it _did_, Loki!" Tony cries, and maybe it's a little crazy and maybe it's a little particular and maybe it's a little self-centered, but Loki absolutely _cannot_ handle _anyone_ raising their voice at him, not even Tony.

"Will you listen to me?" Loki finds himself borderline yelling, raising a frustrated, anxious hand to rake his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair.

"Will _you_ listen to _me__?_" Tony counters, just as pissed off and self-righteous and persistent as Loki is. "Your feelings _do_ matter, and I _know_ I upset you last night, I _know _I did."

"What are you talking about?" Loki asks, shrill and desperate and just fucking _breathless_, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he's remembering exactly how angry he was at Tony when the man was yelling at his brother – _his_ brother – like he wasn't even in the room. Oops.

Tony proves his memory to be infinitely sharper than Loki's, though, because he's practically writing a novel when he answers his question.

"First of all, I lost you when we were at the club," he says, and before Loki can inquire as to what he means by that, he's elaborating, "I don't know _what_ I said to hurt you, but you didn't open back up to me until we were on the dance floor again."

Loki pauses, analyzes his recollection of last night for a second, and asks, "_Roxanne?_"

"_Yes_, Roxanne," Tony confirms. "You did that thing where you go all silent and thoughtful, and I know for a fact that something's wrong when you start thinking like that and when you're not laughing at me and when you can't even _look_ at me straight."

"Tony–"

"Second of all, even though you only got around to fussing at Thor, I know you were mad at me, too," Tony goes on. "I shouldn't have done what I did. I shouldn't have forgotten you. I'm not your spokesperson."

"Tony, _please_," Loki whines, but Tony's being affected and duplicitous and refusing to let him finish his sentences or even _begin_ to make a point, and _damn_, isn't this why he's loathing himself in the first fucking place? (You'd think that people would strive to _shed_ their bad habits, but it's just _so_ _much_ _**easier**_ to simply hate them and not do anything about them, you know?)

"And I didn't forget when you mentioned Steve," Tony continues, instantly succeeding at throwing Loki into another Hasbro-esque rage.

"So I _did_ mention Steve," Loki retorts, catching the way Fenrir flinches at his sharpened tone in his peripheral vision. "What are you trying to say by that?"

"You're jealous of him," Tony replies, and his answer so lame, so _maddening_, that Loki's on the verge of yelling again when he responds to that load of very true, very enraging bullshit.

"I almost took you to _bed_ last night!" he cries. The hand in his hair curls into a tight, unyielding fist as he exclaims, as if it should be completely obvious (and it sort of is), "No_ shit_, I'm jealous of him!"

"But _why_, Loki?" Tony demands, mirroring Loki's heat almost perfectly as he growls his words out like a werewolf near the full moon. "Is it because Thor's back in your life and things have been harder for you lately and you're a hot commodity now and you were drunk and it was my birthday? Is _that_ why?"

Ouch.

Loki knows he shouldn't be so hurt by that question. He _knows_ he shouldn't. He knows he deserved a slap in the face of that nature for being so capricious for so long. That knowledge doesn't stop his breath from disappearing from his lungs and his blood from rushing to his cheeks and his throat from constricting and his mouth from going desert-dry, though, and he's close to tears for the _eighteen billionth_ time this _hour_ as he chokes out, "I meant what I said."

"So did I," Tony retorts, seemingly undeterred by Loki's audible distress. Loki listens to him pant against the mouthpiece for a few seconds before he adds, "Do you still want to get tangled up with a person like me?"

Loki lays his head back down on Fenrir's body, wiping at the moisture welling up in his eyes and wincing at the pain shooting up his brain stem and examining the smudge of eyeliner on the cuff of his sleeve (goddamn, he must have looked _awful_ last night) as he murmurs, soft and broken and so _pleading_ it's pitiful, "I don't want to have this conversation on the phone."

Tony's not going to have that, though.

"Loki, _tell _me," he orders. "Do you _still_ want to get tangled up with a person like me?"

"_I don't want to have this conversation on the phone!_" Loki repeats, his voice a strangled cry and his breath catching horribly in his throat. Fenrir starts at the volume of his words, ears turned back and blue eyes wide, and the husky squirms restlessly in Loki's grip until he sits up again, alleviating the pressure he has on his thick, furry body.

"I'm not hanging up until you answer me," Tony says. There's no room for argument once that statement is out in the air.

To tell you the truth, this is a peculiar thing that's happening right here, this fight that they're having, and the source of its peculiarity – the source of _it_ itself – is Tony's refusal to let Loki lie even though he's so good at doing just that, is the difference between what's right and what's easy, is their near-identical tendencies to think so lowly of themselves, is their quickness to point out their own flaws in others, is their self-destructive desperation for one another, and _this_ – this is what has been scaring the living _fuck_ out Loki, this abstract possibility that they could get in a fight so _dreadful_ (and worse, over _each other_) that they won't even want to fight anymore –

But that's the irony of this whole situation. They're _fighting_, and that means they care. They're probably not going to agree about a damn thing but their love for one another, but at least they care enough to disagree in the first place. At _least_ they _care_.

"I do," Loki says once he can breathe properly again.

A beat, then Tony pushes, "You do?" He's not being as harsh as he was before, but his insistent tone effortlessly grates on Loki's already fragile nerves.

"I _do!_" Loki reiterates, tired of repeating himself.

Tony doesn't say anything for several lengthy moments, just breathes into the phone and listens to Loki sniffle and scrub the tip of his nose red. Then he sighs, "I'm sorry," and it sounds like the best worst thing Loki's ever heard.

"Shut up," Loki replies, resting a hand atop the flat of Fenrir's skull and gently scratching through the fur there. Tony laughs a quiet, defeated little laugh, and Loki has to battle down his urge to smile as he goes on to say, "Nobody was right last night. We all fucked up. Deal?"

"Deal," Tony says, receptive and cooperative like rarely ever is.

"Are you going to come pick me up now?" Loki asks. "I need to talk to you."

"We're talking," Tony indicates, the _jackass_. Loki deadpans.

"_Tony_."

"I'll be there in thirty," Tony chuckles pacifyingly, and just as Loki begins to mentally divvy up the remaining time he has to make himself somewhat human again, the man adds as something of an afterthought (but a lot more like a promise), "I love you."

That throws Loki's train of thought so off track that he actually thinks he can hear it crashing somewhere in the corner of his mind. His teeth worry at the inside of his mouth for one anxious, hesitant moment before he realizes that there's no legitimate reason why he should be any kind of apprehensive (not anymore, at least), and he lowers his gaze to the floor as he replies, "I love you, too."

He hopes Tony believes him this time.

As soon as he's off of the phone, Loki's grabbing a clean set of clothes and throwing the dirty ones he shed last night into the pile of laundry that is Fenrir's bed. He forces himself to vomit the meager contents of his stomach into his close friend, the toilet, knowing that if he doesn't get the alcohol and sugar out of him now, he's probably going to have it all over the interior of Tony's truck. Then, he scrubs his skin hard and fast enough to have it flushed and goosebumped in what's probably the quickest shower anyone's ever taken in the universe, brushes his teeth, neglects to do much more than just tousle his hair (because even though seeing the array of curls atop his head makes him want to rip his fucking scalp off, his time is pretty limited and he knows his hairstyle has the potential to put a smile on Tony's face), and slips into an old Journey pullover and a pair of skinny pants. He has about fifteen minutes left to waste on himself after he's taken three Tylenol and yanked himself away from the mirror, so he decides to make the most of that time by eating something (he doesn't want to pass out on Tony, either, and how odd is it that every time he gets drunk, he never puts any food in his stomach?) despite the fact that his mind is torturing him with a mile-long list of things he probably should and/or needs to do, like take Fenrir for a walk and wash clothes and clean the backyard and clean the bathroom and clean his room and clean everything _ever_, and _goddamn_, this is a predicament that's got him thinking suicidal thoughts and contemplating dropping out of the school that is life, because he's fucking _exhausted_ of the so-called lessons he's been learning for the past twenty years. Jesus.

When Loki walks into the kitchen with Fenrir on his heels, he doesn't find anyone else there before him. For a second, he entertains the thought of Thor having left the house, but he's quickly reminded of the fact that his brother is a stubborn, selfish being and likely wouldn't just disappear without at least _trying_ to confront him. So, because it's pretty much the only thing he _can_ do at the moment, he lets the feeling of dread perched at the back of his tongue slide down his throat and settle in the pit of his stomach, a place it knows extraordinarily well after having returned there time and time again.

He's so good at being afraid of things he should get _paid_ for it, he swears.

Loki deigns to pour himself a glass of milk, toast four out of the six remaining slices of bread he has, and spread the last of his Nutella on them (oh goodie, _another_ thing he has to do – go grocery shopping), and while he waits for the toaster to do its thing, he walks Fenrir around the damp, mucky backyard, picks up any waste he finds, sweeps the patio clean, and rinses out Fenrir's food and water bowls. After washing his hands, he sits at the kitchen table with Fenrir and forces his hastily-made meal past his lips, his head resting against the husky sat in the chair beside him.

Loki is finishing off his third slice of toast, texting himself a grocery list, and thinking about how much easier maintaining his house would be if Thor just did the laundry or cleaned a room or two every once in awhile when lo and behold – here comes the golden boy himself, shuffling purposefully into the room only to freeze a step inside the doorway and just _stare_ at Loki like he's never encountered a creature so terrifying before.

And Loki suddenly feels all of the anger that had been clogging his literary arteries last night triggering yet another rather convenient heart attack, and it's a little difficult for him to think straight because of the wave of rage that washes over his mind and blocks out every sense and every thought that might cross the threshold of it with the exception of the monster of emotion that wants to rip right through him, and he kind of forgets how to breathe for a little while, and no color besides red exists in the world, and _fuck_, what's that thing people like to call contentment? And happiness? And mental stability and love for other people?

Loki doesn't say a thing, though, just lets his eyes pass over Thor a moment before picking up his last piece of Nutella toast and biting into it. Fenrir chooses not to react to Thor's arrival, either, and Loki's not sure if that's a comfort or a problem to him (it _should_ be a comfort, but _fuck_ if Loki doesn't want his husky to just rip his brother's face off right now).

Thor remains where he is, awkward and petrified, for about twenty more long, silent, _horrifying_ seconds. When Loki continues to not speak and just chew his food, Thor risks venturing further into the room, walks all the way across the kitchen and opens the fridge to peer inside, every movement careful and direct. Loki watches the man from beneath his eyelashes and tries hard to keep his breathing somewhat even, and he assumes that Thor is displeased by the lack of food he finds in the refrigerator after he sees the face he makes, hears the soft groan he emits.

He's swallowing the very last of his toast when Thor finally speaks up.

"Aren't you gonna say anything?" the man asks, his tone uncharacteristically quiet and cautious. He's still the scared little boy he was the night before, so it seems.

Loki pulls his gaze away from Thor's back, glancing out the window, where he can see that it's starting to drizzle once more, and replying, "I said everything I wanted to last night." It's a half-lie, but it's for both his _and_ Thor's sake (not that he'd ever truly own up to his attempt to save his brother from how very monstrous he can be).

Thor pauses, then says, "Well, I want to talk."

The first thing that springs up in Loki's psyche in response to Thor's statement that actually registers to him is shock, because Thor _never_ '_wants to talk_', _**ever**_. Thor confronts problems like a soldier – not a politician, and he fixes things with his loudness and his fists instead of with his words. There's frankly no such thing as '_talking_' with Thor; rather, there's either being strong enough to match his punches or vociferous enough to out-scream him. Only the latter of these things is something Loki's capable of achieving, and even so, his ability to talk loudly really starts to wane after he's cried his throat into constriction and been reduced to a blubbering mess of a person.

Bewilderment is quickly overtaken by indignation, however, and Loki is quick to express that when he snaps, "Does it look like I give a damn?"

Thor turns to him, then, not exactly whiplash-fast but not slow enough for him to be perplexed or stunned or anything less than moderately irritated. Loki meets his gaze with unconcealed fury, setting his lips into a dark, nasty scowl.

"See, that's it right there," Thor sighs, his icy eyes growing stormy and distressed like they always do after he's been insulted.

Loki practically punctuates Thor's comment with, "What's _it_?"

"It's like I can't do anything right by you," Thor replies just as rapidly. He shuts the fridge without looking at it or taking anything from it, and for some reason, that just pisses Loki off even _more_.

"You can't!" Loki yells, chest rising with the deep, angry breath he sucks in through his nose, his nostrils flaring, eyes burning, cheeks tightening, lips puckering. They're only thirty seconds into this 'talk' and he's _already_ screaming.

Thor isn't hesitant to bark back at him, though (which isn't very surprising, for it doesn't take much to unnerve or rile the man up), and he's definitely catching up with Loki's volume when he cries, "You could at least tell me how to try to!"

(FYI: Speaking from a purely objective standpoint, Thor is false in this particular accusation. Loki has told him many, _many_ times that he needs to clean up after himself and respect him and his house and let him have his space and allow him to make his own decisions before. However, it's not inaccurate of him to assume that nothing he does will ever satisfy Loki, because, well, that's kind of how it's always been between the two of them.)

"I shouldn't have to!" Loki retorts, rising out of his seat more to visibly balance out this picture of anger he and Thor are painting than to intimidate the man before him, because he knows that's a game he just won't win by the time Thor is seriously exasperated. As Fenrir jumps off of his chair and circles around to stand behind him, Loki glares at Thor like he's trying to knock him down with his eyes and his eyes alone and adds, "I'm your _brother_!"

"_Yeah_, Loki! I know that! I'm not stupid!" Thor exclaims, and he sounds like he's legitimately upset and puzzled when he asks, "Why is it such a problem that I want to protect you, then?"

"I don't _need_ you to protect me anymore!" Loki shrieks, kicking his chair to the side and stalking towards Thor, who backs up at his approach in what looks like disgust but is probably just fear. Loki doesn't think he's going to strike Thor until his hand is halfway-raised to do so, and it takes the willpower of the _gods_ for him to just ball his fingers into a pretty little fist and let gravity pull them downwards like the decent, civil person he tries to guilt himself into being would.

After several short, tense moments of just watching Loki like one would watch a feral animal on the verge of mauling something (which is basically what Loki is fifty percent of the time, really), Thor starts to say, "You're my little brother–", and it's like he _knows_ he's gone in the wrong direction after those four words have escaped him, because the expression plastered across his face is nearly _expectant_ when Loki cuts him off.

"I'm not a _child_, Thor!" Loki interjects, almost shivering with fury as he takes another step forward, one Thor doesn't back away from. "I don't need to be coddled and defended and babied by you all the time. I can take care of myself _without_ your help."

"Loki, I'm not just going to stop looking out for you because you're so damn independent all of a sudden!" Thor asserts, forceful and slightly more like himself than he was before (and by _like himself_, I mean growling and angry and not all vulnerable and pained). He looks like he's ready to grab Loki by the shoulders and start shaking him or punch him in the face or shove him to the floor when he says, "I did that once and look what happened to you."

It only takes a second for Loki to realize that Thor's talking about the accident and the disease it thrust upon him, a second more to think of everything else the man could be implying, like the whole of the past two years or so – twenty-six months Thor spent with Steve Rogers and Clint Barton and everybody beautiful and awful in the world (or just in the city of Sidney, Montana), twenty-six months Thor wasn't there for him for more than a few minutes or for anything besides a verbal lashing of anybody that looked at him the wrong way or a half-assed plea of innocence, twenty-six months Loki spent replacing everybody that had once been in his life with Tony, _Tony_, who took Thor's job of shielding him from the world, Freya's job of being the person closest to his heart, Freyr's job of lighting a fire of passion and sin inside him, Odin's job of reminding him just how very insignificant he really was, Frigga's job of reminding him that he was worth the moon and the stars, every lost creature he'd ever found's job of being something to love and care for like he would himself if himself wasn't a thing he hated so much. For _twenty-six months_, Thor and Loki existed in two completely different worlds that sometimes overlapped but always remained separate, and Loki thinks that Thor's insinuating that those twenty-six months did him something awful, and that really just breaks his heart and fills him with the oddest kind of rage, because the only reason _why_ those twenty-six months harmed him in any way was because Thor decided to end them by showing up on his doorstep and asking for a home, and Loki is pretty damn certain that he could have gone the rest of his life healing and rebuilding himself with things Tony would put inside him to replace all the bullshit and the junk Thor and Freyr and Freya and Balder and Odin and Steve and _every-__**fucking**__-body_ shoved down his throat, and the fact that Thor messed that up by injecting himself back into his life in such a drastic way and making him feel things he hasn't felt in _years_ and forcing him to evolve out of the mold he was just starting to become comfortable in is just fucking _agonizing_ for Loki to digest, because it _sucks_, having to change. It _sucks_, paying attention to a past so dreadful. It _**sucks**_, caring about a person who cares for you just as much but in an entirely _wrong_ way. It really, _really _sucks.

Loki blinks, unsure whether to feel offended or gratified by Thor's comment. He fixes Thor with a look that conveys everything from hurt to confusion to passivity, asks, "You really think I'm so terrible?"

"It's not _you_," Thor practically whines, reaching out for Loki only to let his hands fall away from the man when he flinches in the opposite direction. He frowns a deep, from-the-heart sort of frown, his brows knitting together at the center of his forehead, and he's almost like a lost puppy in his helplessness and his demeanor, in the way he watches Loki with eyes so bottomless and remorseful they're nearly impossible to behold. After a moment of silence, during which Loki attempts to formulate a response that manages to be pissy and justified and apologetic and rational all at once, Thor adds, "It's what I did to you."

And that has to be the biggest admission of guilt that's ever come out of the man. Loki's gone his whole life never hearing Thor own up to anything he's done in such a sincere way – not _once_ – and now that they're standing in _his_ kitchen, two adults with very individual wants and needs and so close to yet so far from having an intelligent conversation and Thor just _baring his soul_ so openly, Loki feels the gears in his head grind to a halt for the first time in what seems like forever. Suddenly, he's not that angry anymore – he's just heartbroken. Just indecisive and overwhelmed and perplexed and _heartbroken_.

"I'm sorry," Thor mumbles when Loki doesn't say anything, bowing his head a bit and glancing at the floor. The sight of that alone stuns Loki into speech.

"Why can't you realize that I've grown up?" is what ends up coming out of his mouth, and his voice is ironically quiet and high-pitched when he asks the question. Thor raises his gaze to meet the other's again, an action that seems to embolden Loki the slightest bit, have him inquire, "Why can't you realize that I _need_ to make my own choices? Why can't you realize that I'm more than just your little brother?" He swallows thickly, looks straight into Thor's clear blue eyes. "I'm not _you_, you know."

That's when Thor says something Loki's going to hear in his head almost every night for the next year and a half. He doesn't say it with much force or vigor, but that's what makes it all the more meaningful, because Loki knows Thor like the back of his hand even if he doesn't always understand him, and he knows that Thor's being the most honest he can be when he's saying – just _saying_, not yelling or growling or laughing or mumbling – "I just want to be your brother again. Your _real_ brother. Like I used to be."

Sometimes, the Earth will just cease to turn and time will grind to a halt because of the extraordinary and rare ability human beings have to put a stop to everything normal and customary with words they probably haven't thought out too extensively. This is one of those times.

First of all, Loki doesn't have a clue _why_ Thor thought it would be acceptable or _safe_ to tell him something so deep, something Loki's completely capable of and not at all beyond ripping him apart for, not so much for the sake of sense or '_I'm bettering your understanding of the world_', but simply because of the fact that Loki is a shitty brother and he's bitten Thor's tongue off more times than he can count on a _hundred_ hands. (_Really_? _Why_ would Thor give him such an opportunity? Does love actually make you _that_ stupid?)

All Loki does know is that Thor is wounded over this, he has been for awhile, and it's probably his and _only_ his fault that the man hasn't brought this up to him for so long. He isn't even upset with the man for keeping his feelings hidden. He's just ashamed of himself.

Secondly, it occurs to Loki then that he wants the same thing as Thor, this whole _being brothers_ thing – no questions asked, no strings attached. I mean, he's pretty much always known that he wants Thor to treat him like he would have had the accident and their adolescences never happened, even _if_ such a desire is extremely unrealistic and just plain fucking impractical, but there's always something else inside him contradicting that. Either he hates Thor for tearing him away from Tony and refusing to clean his room and having friends other than him, or he hates himself for being alive and acting selfishly and having feelings, or he hates _everything_ for spiting him in some way, shape, or form – he's _never_ able to want Thor to be his brother without some other complication impeding on that wish, and of course, there's all kind of consequences associated with letting Thor in again, like the aforementioned requirement that he change and a loss of personal security and constant reminders of the past and the simple fact that trusting people is a difficult task to carry out when you've got so many scars on your back that sometimes it's difficult to remember everybody who put one there. But you know what?

Loki promised himself a long time ago that he would accomplish at least one great thing in his life, and if he has the chance to overcome the mountain of problems between he and Thor, he's going to take it, and if he can prove himself wrong at something, he's going to do it, and if he's tired of fighting Thor as well as he is of fighting himself, he's going to rest.

Loki's hit with a deep, philosophical thought, then, the kind that usually only comes to him when he's lying around with Tony and they're trying to figure out the workings of the universe. _Things will always be imperfect_, he thinks, and that notion fills him up with such exquisite joy and such twisted sorrow that he has to bring a hand up to wipe at his eyes, which are now brimming with involuntary tears (and dear_ Lord_, is he sick of tears).

"You are," he replies to Thor's statement, nodding ever so slightly as if to reassure himself of the faint, flimsy truth in his words. "But you're also just _you_, and I'm also just _me_."

Thor stares at Loki and doesn't say anything for awhile, every aspect of him smaller, from the way he holds his shoulders to the very essence of his being, usually so radiant and all-encompassing and now just a dying flame of an aura. When he finally does speak, he's repeating the same helpless apology he maundered out earlier – "I'm sorry."

That's when Loki covers his face with his left hand and just lets his tears fall into the curve of his palm. As soon as the first shaky breath – not quite a sob but somehow more poignant – passes between his lips, Thor's right there, and Loki's actually letting him _hug_ him, and he's bringing his free arm up to wrap around Thor's shoulders, and he's leaning his head into his brother's, and Thor is squeezing his aching body like he might not ever have the opportunity to again – a valid fear considering the cycle their relationship tends to undergo.

"I really am sorry, Loki. I just don't ever know what to do with you anymore," Thor mumbles, his voice cracking the tiniest bit. He doesn't shift or loosen his grip on his small, lithe brother, just holds him where he is and lets him drop his forehead to his shoulder, where he can dampen his t-shirt and not worry about how the weight of his skull sometimes gets to be too much to handle.

"I'm sorry, too," Loki replies in a tone just as hushed and twice as broken. "You shouldn't have to put up with me."

Thor scoffs quietly. "Don't be stupid," he says, drawing a brief laugh out of Loki simply because of the fact that _he'd_ usually be the one telling such a thing to Thor. Thor pauses at Loki's chuckle before going on to say, "I practically killed you. You screaming at me is the least I deserve."

Honestly, Thor has _never_ been so self-deprecating in the entirety of his twenty-two year lifespan – at least, not verbally, he hasn't. Listening to him speak like this, like _Loki_, is one of the worst things Loki's ever had to endure, and he's suddenly determined to make sure that Thor never has a reason to think of himself like that again, even if it means he has to let go of his already feeble pride.

"You didn't mean to," Loki murmurs, letting himself admit as well as believe the fact that Thor really _didn't_ intend to get them into that accident for the very first time (because even though getting drunk off your ass to pick your little brother up isn't exactly conducive to, let's see, _not killing people_, it's not like Thor purposefully crashed into that poor old guy only two intersections away from home, and Loki _was_ yelling at him like he had no idea that a person as drunk and as confrontational as Thor would react less than violently to his harpy-esque criticism). Sniffing softly, he raises his head so that he can look directly at Thor. "And I forgive you."

He's not really sure how much of that was honesty and how much of that was just the heat of the moment, but he's already told himself that he's going to make that statement a true one someday, so he neglects to think too hard on the nature of what he just blurted out.

Thor's eyes light up like a child's would, like two stars in the belt of Orion or a couple of cerulean fireflies, and he's coming back to himself, now, turning into that sunny, luminous person he almost always is. His tone is booming and resonant – just like Thor himself – when he laughs, "Thank you," and crushes Loki in a breathtaking, soul-shaking, heartbreaking sort of embrace, one he drags out for several long, oxygen-deprived seconds.

Loki is just croaking out a strangled, chuckling, "You're welcome," when a sharp rapping noise comes from somewhere outside of the universe he and Thor are existing in, and suddenly, his mind is in a totally different place than it was before, because there could only be one person knocking on the door right now, and that person is Tony.

Thor releases Loki a bit slowly, his features a mask of mild confusion when Loki gets a chance to look at them, and once the man grasped the abruptly urgent and anxious state his demeanor has fallen into, his brows furrow just a little and he asks in a tone so ambiguous it's almost infuriating, "It's him, isn't it?"

Loki immediately grasps the meaning of Thor's purposefully dubious question. He nods tersely, carefully searching his brother's face for anything worse than passive acceptance as he sniffles, scrubs his eyes dry, and replies, "Yeah."

Thor gives Loki an impulsive, disappointed little frown before (failingly) attempting to school his expression into something that can just barely pass for indifference. He silently opens his mouth for one lengthy moment, like he's about to say something long-winded and justified and important and entitled, then just sighs, "Oh," all lame and unsurprised and so obviously dissatisfied with this particular occurrence.

For a second, Loki's exceptionally torn between completely disregarding Thor's semi-disapproving reaction to go answer the door and being a good person – a good _brother_ – and trying to, I don't know, _comfort_ the man before him… or something to that effect. It's a bit difficult for him to even consider doing the first thing after the weird heart-to-heart he was just knee-deep in, but the very thought of Tony has his judgment cloudy and his blood getting NASCAR-esque, and he doesn't want to be rude, and making decisions is hard to do when you're a twenty year-old white boy with a mood disorder and trust issues like nobody's business, and _shit_, he can't even _think straight _with all these emotions running rampant inside him.

Thor basically makes his choice for him when he says, "You should probably get that." It's not the most encouraging comment to make, but it lets Loki know that Thor isn't going to throw a temper tantrum if he leaves with Tony, which tells him that the conversation they just had actually _did_ mean something (if only for a moment), which tells him that it's okay for him to raise his chin a little, which tells him that he's capable of having positive thoughts every once in awhile, which tells him that he really _doesn't _have it as bad as he thinks he does, which tells him that he's a pretentious ass that needs to get a serious fucking grip on himself, thus landing his mood in a somewhat unpleasant hole for the twenty millionth time today. Life is good, isn't it?

"You're going to be okay?" Loki asks just as another barrage of knocks comes from the living room, letting his hands linger on Thor's shoulders a bit longer than necessary. A question as compassionate as the one he just ejected feels weird coming out of his mouth when he's addressing anyone other than Tony or Frigga, and he tries to push down the feeling of discomfort that wads up in his throat once he realizes how odd it is for him to be openly concerned for his brother.

"Yeah, of course," Thor replies, giving Loki a couple of affirmative nods and a smirk that only looks a little forced. Loki's ready to give the man another hug, one less desperate and tragic and more amiable and warm than the one before, when Thor adds, like it's fucking _customary _that things should be awkward and bumpy to some extent, "Just be careful."

_Wow_.

Only allowing himself an ounce of forethought, Loki smacks Thor's bicep with a tiny scowl, narrows his eyes at the man when he lets out a boisterous, thundering laugh in response. "Don't be a jackass," he huffs.

"Sorry," Thor chuckles, and he's so amused and lighthearted and _relieved_ now that Loki can't really get angry with him again (unfortunately).

Absolutely despite and beside himself, Loki curls his mouth into this rare, impossibly pleased smile, brings his hands up to sandwich Thor's face between them, leans their foreheads together in an uncharacteristic expression of affection, and just _laughs_, freely and without much abandon. Thor grumbles at and resists the gesture at first, but after Loki mumbles out a low little, "Don't be a baby, you _baby_," the man lets himself echo Loki's soft chuckling and relaxes a little. And Loki holds them there like that for a few seconds, amusing himself with the way Thor looks like a cyclops so up close, then says, "Don't destroy anything."

As the smaller, darker of them pulls away and moves in the direction of the living room, grabbing his cellphone from where he left it on the table as he goes, Thor grins and, with a mock-salute of guaranteed fidelity, crows, "Aye-aye, captain!" There are no words to describe the feeling that fills Loki at those words, golden and heart-stopping and so close to perfection it's painful, because oh _God_ – Thor called him _captain_. _**Captain**_. Like-he's-actually-in-charge-of-things _captain_. Like-he-has-a-degree-of-worth _captain_. _**Captain**_.

However amazing Thor's comment makes him feel, though, bravado is a thing that ceases to exist in Loki's world once he's walking into the living room with Fenrir following close after him, and even though he knows he shouldn't be afraid of seeing Tony, even though he knows he _needs_ to see Tony, he can't really stifle the apprehension that crops up inside him when he's approaching the front door like he's about to pass through a portal into an unknown alternate dimension full of things designed to scare the hell out of him. He feels self-conscious in a way he never should around Tony, not since that night in October of the previous year when they got awfully drunk and spent hours singing to one another with Loki's YouTube history and Tony's media library as their guides, wearing clothes homely and comfortable enough to consider each other the true high school definition of what best friends are; not since the morning after that when Loki awoke curled up in Tony's bed, cocooned in two comforters exactly how he _loves_ to fall asleep with Tony wrapped around him outside of his protective cotton shield, his body bared to the cold despite the fact that he was rich enough to have Osiris craft him a blanket of Egyptian cotton and fucking _hand deliver _it to him if he wanted it to, his head tucked beneath Loki's chin, and his existence a heaven-sent gift Loki would often wonder how he'd come to deserve.

And then the door is open and _oh_, there Tony is, slightly raccoon-eyed and fuzzy-headed and just a little disheveled, not in a fashion that's intentional but in a fashion that's rushed and eager, and Loki _knows_ that Tony hurried out of his house as fast as he could even though he's about five minutes late, _knows_ Tony took a shower just as quick as _he_ did and _knows_ he dealt with his hair just as much (just as _little_) as _he_ did, because it's damp and messy atop his head and Tony usually cares about his appearance more than such disorder reflects, and Loki can smell rain and soap and Axe on the man, and he's smelled that sweet, clean mixture of a scent countless times before when he's laid down with Tony in bed or on a sofa somewhere, smelled that scent mingled with motor oil and acrylic paint and sweat and tobacco, and that reminder warms him to the bone, but he has to speak now and he doesn't really know what to say, so can I get a little help from the audience, please?

Eventually, Tony realizes that Loki's being weird like he sometimes is when national disasters like last night happen, so he quirks his lips into a crooked, impish smirk and quips, "I really look _that _bad?"

Loki's face contorts into a display of what's supposed to be a hybrid between sheepish embarrassment and exasperated endearment as he replies, "You're fine."

"'_Fine_' as in '_average_' or '_fine_' as in _'hey there, sexy_'?" Tony counters, grinning when Loki rewards him with one of those involuntary laughs that will occasionally come out of him without his permission. A second later and he's halfway in the doorway, grabbing Loki's wrist and pulling him from where he halfway-hides behind the door, and for a moment, they're _normal_ – just a couple of silly young men who happen to laugh a whole fucking lot around each other. But then they both realize at the exact same time how very close they're standing together, and Loki's uncomfortable and Tony just looks _confused_, and they're back to square one – awkward, silent, _stupid_ square one.

That is, until Tony closes the short distance between them to kiss Loki right on the lips. It's a pretty normal kiss – not particularly cautious, but not passionate or lustful or anything. It doesn't last long enough to be considered dramatic, nor is it exceptionally short and fleeting and unsatisfying. It's just pleasantly tender, the right amount of affectionate and soothing and _okay_, and Loki raises a hand to brush his fingers along Tony's jaw as if to express his approval of the gesture (or a desire to stay connected by the mouth forever – same difference).

Tony lets out a soft, gusty sigh at Loki's touch, forcing their lips to part so that he can give the other a rather open once over. He still has Loki's wrist in his grasp, and he rubs his thumb over the inside of it like he's drawing runes on his skin as he takes in the quietly acceptant, wordlessly longing quality of Loki's disposition. And the whole universe is a question mark in that instant, and here they are, trying to figure out what to call each other or if that kiss was appropriate or if their lives really are as theatrical as they make them out to be, and Loki senses that they're having one of _those_ moments, those moments where their thoughts synchronize without them being terribly aware of it, and he likes that. That's a comforting thing to think about.

Then Tony asks, "You want to try that again, or…?", and Loki's seriously hoping he doesn't seem as desperate as he really is when his fingers turn imperative on Tony's jowl and he slips his wrist out of the man's grip so that he can hook his arm around his neck and tug him closer. Tony makes this nearly inaudible, chuckling sort of noise before he's pressing his mouth to Loki's once more, letting his hands rest against the man's hips like they belong there, like this is something they do everyday – just greet each other with soft, lazy kisses that sow seeds of fire in the pits of their stomachs.

Because the world is a large place that just happens to hate them and time is a thing that goes on, Fenrir starts to brush his body along the back of Loki's legs and Thor emerges from the kitchen with an incredibly healthy breakfast/lunch (_Lord knows_ how long the man's been up) of beef jerky and Red Bull just as Tony turns the kiss the slightest bit sensual by focusing on Loki's bottom lip and sucking at it so gently he needs to be _shot_ or something, and Loki's aware that even though Thor kind of-sort of agreed to give him his space where Tony's concerned, there's nothing in the fine print that says he's obligated to like Tony or enjoy watching the two of them make out (plus, Loki has firsthand knowledge of how uncomfortable it is to see your sibling share saliva with someone you aren't too fond of – does the name '_Sif_' ring any bells?). So, due to the fact that he _is_ a conscientious person (I know how hard that is to believe), he pulls his mouth away from Tony's and nuzzles at the man's nose, says, "Maybe we should get out of here."

Tony gives Loki one of the many variations of his puppy-dog look, this one conveying something like mild confusion or unabashed affection or both, and when Loki takes a step back (and nearly falls on top of Fenrir, thank you very much), his eyes trail from him to whatever's going on behind him, which is most likely Thor bitch-facing the hell out of him or being grumpy or whatever it is he does when he's angry and sworn to silence. Tony's expression sobers a little as he returns his gaze to Loki and replies, "Yeah, good idea," taking Loki's hand from his shoulder so that he can press a tiny kiss to his knuckles (that's one quiet cough out of Thor, courtesy of Mr. Stark) and tugging him in the direction of the outside, where it's still drizzling and gray in a way that Loki loves most of the time.

Initially, Loki pulls out of Tony's grip so that he can turn around and kneel beside Fenrir, who seems to instinctively know that he's about to leave for an indefinite amount of time if the flatness of his ears and the roundness of his eyes are any indication. He takes a moment to smooth the husky's fur down around his face and neck, to rub their noses together and kiss the dip between his eyes, and for a second, his heart physically aches at the realization that he's been abandoning Fenrir quite a bit lately, that he's probably making matters worse by leaving him right now.

As if he's somehow heard Loki's thoughts, Thor blurts, "I'll play with him… and stuff." When Loki raises his eyes to him, his fingers still buried in Fenrir's fur, Thor looks uncomfortable and twitchy and just shy of sheepish when he scratches a hand through his hair and adds, "You're going to be gone all day, right?"

Tony snorts out a suggestive, insolent sort of chuckle from behind Loki at Thor's comment, and Loki allows himself a small smile when he sees Thor stiffen in response to the noise. He replies, "I'm assuming, yeah," and as soon as the words leave him, he can practically _feel_ Tony smirking at the spot between his shoulders, feel the gallons of smugness radiating off of the man in waves at everything his answer sort of-kind of implies (because it's simply _impossible _to keep your mind out of the gutter in today's society).

Thor nods brusquely, gesturing with his Red Bull to Fenrir and fastidiously neglecting to look at Tony. "I'll take care of him," he promises.

Loki's tentative smile grows into something bright and joyful and so incredibly and uncharacteristically sweet in its toothlessness. He lets out a chuckled, rare, "Thank you, Thor," giving Fenrir one last scratch behind the ears and Thor a look that's supposed to mean something special, or _whatever_, before he's following Tony out to his truck a little more than anxiously.

"You never stopped crying, did you?" is what Tony asks him the instant he's got the passenger side door closed, and his question does a spectacular job of throwing a wave of panic over Loki, something he must know and/or sense judging by the way he leans over to thread his fingers through the damp hair at the back of Loki's head and press a quick, affectionate kiss to his cheekbone a few seconds after he's voiced the query.

"I did," Loki replies after he's gotten his thoughts to act somewhat orderly, watching Tony key his engine on. "It's just that Thor and I–" He stops abruptly at the sudden loudness of the music blaring from Tony's speakers – Daft Punk, if he's identified this particular artist correctly – and Tony throws him a sheepish glance as he turns the volume down to a hushed, comfortable _7_. Loki takes another second to gather himself again before he repeats, "It's just that Thor and I had this… _thing _after I'd gotten dressed."

"Was that _thing_ called an argument?" Tony asks as he busies himself with trying to back out of Loki's front yard. Loki has the vague sensation of being in high school again, watching his house slip away from him without his hands on a steering wheel.

"It started off that way," he says, keeping his eyes focused on the houses passing outside his window rather than on Tony. "It just got emotional and… _sticky_."

"_Sticky_," Tony snort-laughs, wrinkling his nose in amusement at the unusual adjective. He pauses for a short stretch before asking, "So you're okay, now?", and the question comes out of him like he knows it has an answer that's less than satisfactory – an assumption that's only slightly accurate.

"I don't know," Loki says, voice quiet and hushed. He brings a hand up and behind his head to play with the hair at the nape of his neck, adds, "I am with Thor, kind of."

Tony makes this soft noise of acknowledgment, then, and Loki listens as the man ejects the CD playing and one-handedly replaces it with something they both have ears for – Coldplay. They're both speechless throughout the first half of _Politik_, and it's not the comfortable kind of friendly silence that doesn't deserve or need to be broken they're sharing, but a silence that's deafening, that speaks volumes and crawls up under your skin and leaves you feeling the slightest bit sick, and Loki kind of _hates_ that he can't find it in himself to speak up, and it's not like he doesn't know what to say or do or anything, because he _does_ know and he _wants_ to talk and he _needs_ to talk, but he feels like doing so would be the equivalent of peeling off the iron skin he's been wearing for so long, skin that's just _so_ much thinner when he's drunk and Tony's spent hours kissing it off of him, and he's _this_ – this weakling, this boy that feels too much and keeps every gallon of emotion his heart will pump through his veins inside of himself, so when it all comes out, it comes out _pouring_, and then he's gone, and he can't fix a _goddamn_ thing, and who the fuck is he kidding if he thinks he can, he can't do _anything_, he only runs away, and he's all alone in his soul, why should he even _try _to be with people, and _shit_, he's scared and bitter again, and this is a sentence that started off being about silence and look at it now, talking about a million things all at once just like every second of wordlessness and '_give me love over, love over, love over this_' that passes is –

And then Tony asks, "Are you going to say something or do I have to pull words out of you with inappropriate comments and clever questions?", because sometimes, the only way to break a silence is to point out its presence. Silences are self-conscious that way.

Loki sighs, finally pulling his eyes away from the window only to drop them on Tony's dashboard instead of on his face. "Where do I start?" he sighs, more to himself than anyone else, but knowing that his friend has a habit of answering every rhetorical question he happens to voice, he's expecting a response out of Tony.

"It's _your_ mind," Tony replies. Loki actually looks at him after he says that, finds him easily returning his stare as they near a yellow light, his dark eyes soft and gently inquisitive.

"You could have made that," he hedges. It takes Tony a moment to realize that Loki's talking about the traffic light in front of them, but when he does, his face splits into the weirdest smile and he _laughs_, quiet and melodious and almost unfitting in an odd sort of way.

"I wanted to look at you, and I can't very well do that while I'm driving, now can I?" the man says, turning his torso ever so slightly to the right so that he can face Loki more directly.

"You've done it before," Loki points out. He gets a pinch on the shoulder for that.

"_Talk_, baby," Tony pushes, and the pet name he's attached to the end of that imperative has Loki close to blushing at the memories it evokes, memories of last night, memories that consist of Tony's tongue in his mouth and Tony's fingers on his spine and Tony's head between his thighs.

Loki sighs something deep and hot in his lungs as his fingers grow rough and jerky in his hair, fear a thing thick and heavy in the center of his chest. He repeats his question from earlier – "Where do I start?"

"How about with what happened after I left?" Tony suggests just as the light turns green.

"Uhm – I just had a breakdown, that's all," Loki half-splutters, his anxiety quickly turning into irritation and rage and shame and depression all at once as he speaks. He's thinking about the look that was plastered on Sif's face when he started yelling at her, thinking about her and Fandral and Thor crowded in the doorway of his room, thinking about the hard, angry plane of Tony's back, and suddenly, the urge to cry doesn't seem so ridiculous and his desire for conversation has decreased quite a bit.

"A breakdown?" Tony asks. He probably knows that Loki's tiptoeing around what actually happened and, like the asshole he is, has taken it upon himself to shove Loki into jumping on this thing with both of his feet.

"I screamed at Thor and his friends, kicked them out of my house, drank some water, and went to bed," Loki borderline snaps, relocating his gaze back to the water trickling down the outside of his window.

"You kicked Thor out?" Tony questions. "He was at your house–"

"No, not _him_," Loki interjects. "Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif."

"You tore into them, didn't you?" Tony urges, and when Loki scoffs and turns a rather heated gaze on him, he smirks, reaches over to trail his fingers along Loki's jaw and laughs, "_That's_ _**my**_ Loki."

"Oh, _stop_," Loki barks, slapping Tony's hand away from his face in spite of the line of heat it's left on his skin. "I'm not proud of what I did."

"_I _am," Tony replies, and for a second, Loki actually flirts with the idea of punching the man dead in the face right in the middle of this intersection they're crossing (and he's never punched _anyone_, _**ever**_, besides Thor and Freyr).

"Tony, I already make people uncomfortable enough by simply _existing_," Loki argues. "The fact that I was a _monster_ last night isn't something I take pride in. I _do_ happen to have a conscience."

Loki is so funny, you guys. _Really_. A _conscience? _What's _that_, and where the hell does Loki think he got one?

"Loki…" Tony starts to say, trailing off into a helpless sort of sigh before running his fingers through his hair, wincing when his digits catch and pull on the tangles there, and asserting, "You said what you had to. They _needed_ you to yell at them – hell, they were practically _begging _for you to with the way they treated you. If you hadn't told them off, they'd have never stopped putting you to bed in tears." Tony pauses to take a breath, casting Loki a sideways glance as he adds, "_Fuck_ their feelings. They've been hurting yours for long enough."

Loki is silent and impassive throughout the entirety of Tony's rant, his eyes blindly focused on the hibiscus shrubs that slide on by outside his rain-spattered window – a sight indicative of the fact that they've entered Tony's neighborhood. He doesn't speak immediately after Tony's ended his argument, but when he does, his voice is insanely quiet and he's being the most honest he's been throughout this whole damn car ride.

He says, "But my feelings don't matter _at all_," and he doesn't think twice about the statement once it's out of him, doesn't even _consider_ the possibility that he could be wrong.

"Bullshit," is Tony's response. Common sense and life experience tell Loki that he should be angered by the man's comment, but the sudden pit of despair he's fallen into, so similar to the one he woke up in, keeps him from feeling anything other than plain, unglamorous disagreement.

"Listen to me," Tony commands once he realizes that Loki's not going to say anything or dispute his claim. "It doesn't matter what Thor or your asshole cousins or your–" He cuts himself off, then, and when Loki forces himself to look at the man, he finds him staring at the road in front of him with a faintly resentful glint in his eyes. Loki's about to urge Tony to continue speaking when he finally just _says_ it, when he picks up right where he left off with, "It doesn't matter what your father ever said or did to you. Your feelings _do_ matter."

"It's not that simple, Tony," Loki huffs, even though he _knows_ he's told Tony the same thing or some variation of it before, even though he _knows_ he'd agree with Tony without a second thought if he were talking about _anyone_ but him.

"Yes it is!" Tony exclaims.

"_No_, it's not!" Loki retorts. "I seriously doubt my family would have treated me the way they did without a good reason to. They're smart people, you know."

Tony exhales a deep, exasperated breath through his nose, making a rather sharp turn onto a side street as he asks, "And what '_good reason_' do you suppose your family had? The fact that you're different from them?"

"The fact that something's _wrong_ with me!" Loki chokes out. He can't seem to take his eyes off of Tony now that they're actually getting somewhere, never mind that '_somewhere_' is a less-than-savory place.

"_What_, Loki?" Tony yells, and suddenly, he's hitting the brakes fast enough for Loki to lurch forward and nearly hit the dashboard (this is dangerous driving for the weather, is it not?). He turns a pair of stormy brown eyes on him, asks, "What's so _awful_ about you, because either _you're_ wrong and just delusional or _I'm _wrong and a complete fucking _idiot_ for thinking so highly of you."

These boys _really_ know how to smack a couple of words together, don't they? (And for the record, the tears welling up in Loki's eyes are ones of fervor – not hurt, not hurt when he's exhausted fourteen years of his life being _upset_ over something that's just universal fact to him, and Tony's just trying to make a point – not offend, not offend when he knows that he'd do better being honest and blunt than sugarcoat anything he tells Loki, and the two of them argue all the time and it's not the end of the world and they're going to disagree about anything and everything but their love for one another until the day they or their biological clocks happen to stop, and such a day can't be seen on the horizon from where they're standing now.)

"Don't yell at me!" Loki cries, fixing Tony with a look just as incensed and intense as the one he's being given. He watches almost curiously as everything hard in Tony's gaze crumbles into something that looks a lot like sorrow, points at the picture perfect house about three yards away from them (which happens to be Tony's), and orders, "Drive."

Tony just stares at Loki for one long, tense moment before he does as he's told and turns into his driveway, repeats in a voice much softer than yet just as bitter as it was before, "What's so awful about you, Loki? Please… just _enlighten_ me."

"Listen to the conversation we're having," Loki says. "I'm disagreeing with you even though I know you're right." He raises an index finger. "That's one."

"That just makes you selfless," Tony argues, keying his engine off. Here come those violent thoughts, again, telling Loki to give his best friend a bloody nose or a black eye.

"By literal definition, _yes!_" Loki huffs, running a rough hand through his messy curls in his frustration. "By _my_ definition, that makes me a narcissist and an asshole."

"We're _all_ narcissistic assholes!" Tony counters, impassioned once more. He's facing Loki, now, one elbow propped up on the steering wheel and the other against his seat to hold himself steady.

"Most people can honestly claim to also have a handful of redeemable traits," Loki asserts, and before Tony can say something in dissent, he's diving into a second argument, one more valid than the first:

"I get upset and emotional over stupid, insignificant things." He raises another finger. "Two."

"You have bipolar disorder," Tony sighs, resting his temple against his palm in exasperation.

"I'm not going to use that as a crutch," Loki insists, his voice just the slightest bit churlish.

"I'm not telling you to use it as a crutch!" Tony cries, eyes wide and tone straining. "I'm _telling_ you that it's not your fault you're so sensitive, and even if it is, there's nothing wrong with being that way."

"There _is_ something wrong with being that way when the only thing getting me out of bed in the morning is sheer force of will," Loki says. He leans back against the passenger door, swiping at the tears in his eyes with his forefinger and his thumb as he adds, "That's something _you've_ given me." He sniffles. "I haven't gotten it for myself."

Tony opens his mouth to speak, but no words emerge from him. He simply watches Loki with a sad, longing pair of eyes, watches him sniff and wipe his nose and his cheeks with the cuff of his sleeve until he decides to go on listing reasons why he deserved every dreadful year of childhood and adolescence he ever endured.

"And I think horrible things, and I'm selfish," Loki continues, softer and meeker than he was before. "I'm a compulsive liar. I'm whiny. I say things just to hurt people. It's nearly impossible for me to let others in. I'm a walking mass of complexes. I'm never satisfied. I _hate_…" He pauses, lowering his gaze to one wrinkled belt loop at Tony's waist with a shaky sigh. "I hate _everything_. So much." He forces himself to return his damp, shining pale eyes to Tony's dark ones, which are deep enough for him to drown in at the moment. "I'm an inch away from offing myself or everyone around me. What _isn't_ awful about me?"

Tony's expression pinches painfully at the question, and without warning, he's leaning forward and taking Loki's face into his hands, tugging him across the center console so much like he was being tugged a month (a _month_) ago and kissing him right under his lips, threading his fingers through his hair and nudging their noses together in a way that's so affectionate and _sweet_ it has Loki going half-limp with emotion. He keeps kissing Loki's face, his chin, his jaws, his cheeks, his nose – everywhere but his mouth – and by the time he's reached Loki's eyelids, he's giving him an answer.

"You're smart," he murmurs between every peck he plants on Loki's skin. "You're hilarious. You're beautiful. You're witty. You _feel_, so much and so hard, and you care. You're talented. You're different." Tony laughs into Loki's cheek. "You love _me_, so you _must_ be some kind of phenomenal."

Loki allows himself a small smile, whispers, "You're being hypocritical."

"As are you," Tony points out, pulling away from Loki to look him in the eyes and give him this lopsided smirk he's impossibly good at wearing. "You're human, Loki. Nothing's ever gonna stop you from being that way."

Loki's smile deepens the slightest bit at that, and he does this thing where he looks down and shrugs a little and refuses to actually say '_thank you_' but manages to articulate it perfectly with the way his lips twitch and the way his breathing evens out and the way his fingers curl around Tony's when the man takes his hand.

And then Tony's kissing him again, soft and gentle and only slightly exploratory, his lips parting to take Loki's bottom one between them, and the rain is beating down a little bit harder than it was a few seconds ago, and Loki can hear Tony shifting in his seat, can feel one of the man's hands slipping down his side to pull him nearer, the other reaching for the door handle to close the distance between them even further, and suddenly, he's remembering that he needs to fix them, because he _knows_ how much more he's going to hate himself if he gets lost in Tony without verbally admitting _why_ he's taking that wrong turn for the fourteen millionth time in only thirty or so days, and he _knows_ what an injustice it would be to both of him if he went without saying anything along the lines of '_I really do love you a whole lot_' and '_I want us to be Facebook official_'.

"I have to tell you something," Loki says against Tony's mouth once the man has let him breathe long enough for him to speak.

"Tell me something, then," Tony replies somewhat distractedly, kissing his way down Loki's chin. He doesn't actually look at Loki or stop his ministrations until Loki's placed a hand on his chest and pushed him about an inch and a half away, and the expression he directs at him is inquisitive and interested in a way that doesn't seem _too_ forced.

Then Loki's taking a deep breath and feeling like a stupid middle-schooler and looking Tony in the eyes and parting his lips and oh _God_, _yeah_, he's going to say this and words are coming out of him and he's too shocked and stunned to even know anything about them save for what they mean and he's just _bewildered_ at the fact that they're actually slipping past his lips and the only way he knows he's making sense or surmounting some kind of wall is the look on Tony's face and the way it changes as he just _says_ it, says, "I don't just _like_ you, Tony."

Tony blinks, his brow furrowing the slightest bit in what almost looks like fear. There's a beat of silence before he's asking, "What?", even though they both know that he heard _exactly_ what Loki just said – he simply didn't believe he did.

"I don't just _like_ you," Loki repeats, nearly shaking with anxiety. "And I don't just want to get into bed with you because you know your way around a dance floor or because of Steve, or Thor, or Fandral, or anyone." He swallows thickly, watching with acute interest as Tony does the same a moment after, and when the man neglects to say anything or move, Loki decides that it's safe for him to continue.

"You don't just make me happy. You make…" He pauses, groping around in his mind for something accurate and beautiful and not too exaggerated. "You make it okay for me to do things like laugh like a hyena or dance like a fool or smile like there are actually things worth smiling over." Almost comically, he smirks, then. "_You're_ something worth smiling over. And when you touch me –" He has to remind himself that only _Tony_ is hearing this, that he shouldn't be embarrassed, that it's okay to say things like this to someone who holds your heart just as carefully and defensively as you do, it's okay, it's _okay_ – "When you touch me, I feel like breathing is so unnecessary and like touching anything else after we've contacted each other is just ludicrous, or criminal, or pointless, and _god_, you're the most flawed person I know but somehow, I love you more and more every time you're imperfect around me."

Tony's eyes are wide and alarmed, now, and he's looking just like a crippled, drenched, _beaten_ deer in the headlights as he listens to Loki, as he so obviously hangs onto every word that falls from his lips like the letters that compose them are whispers of a dream he's not ready to wake up from yet. Loki starts to reach out to touch the man's face, but his mind (heart, same difference) quickly tells him that he isn't done yet, so he just wills himself to grab the side of his seat and squeeze the leather there as hard as possible.

"Earlier, when I called you, I heard your voice and didn't know why I wanted to die," Loki says, and when Tony's expression contorts into something slightly affronted, he laughs and adds, "Well, I _did_, but only after I'd gotten in the shower and thought about it for a little while."

Tony's frown softens a bit, but he maintains his unusual, frightening silence. Loki continues again.

"I think it was because I knew that if I'd been on the phone with anyone else and they sounded as tired as you did, I would have thought them vulnerable. But you –" He breathes out a brief, somewhat sad chuckle, casting his eyes downward. "I thought you were beautiful in the oddest, most human way there is to be beautiful, and you calmed me down when you started to speak, and only _you_ can do that, and I don't know how to deal with something so wonderful, and that kind of makes me just a little _terrified_ of the thought of living any longer than today." Loki shakes his head a bit, taking a few seconds to catch his breath and steady his pitch as well as his volume. "I'd never want to lose something as perfect as your voice when you've just woken up and you're talking to me on the phone, or as honest as you calling me out on my bullshit, or as wonderful as the way you smell right now, or as simple as you kissing my fingers."

Tony breaks his silence, then, but all that comes out of him is a hushed, strained, "Loki…", and it's like last night all over again, and he looks like he might cry but he's trained himself to be fiery enough to dry up any tears that threaten to fall and icy enough to shut his weakness down and out, but Loki's _still_ not done, and he's going to keep talking even if the way Tony says his name kills him, makes him want to kiss his throat until his voice is strong enough to laugh and rumble like it usually does.

"And I know I'm _so _late and I'm a jackass for being so late, and maybe you were right when you said that the reason why I'm doing this or saying this or _feeling_ this now is because Thor's moved in with me, but I'm _still_ feeling it, aren't I?" Loki blinks as soon as he's aware of the burning and the moisture in his eyes, watches as Tony's gaze quickly follows the tear that escapes down his cheek before moving back to where it had been focused on what Loki's sure is his left iris (because you really _can't_ look at both of a person's eyes at the same time, no matter _what_ authors want you to think). He lets go of his seat to drive the heel of his palm into his eyes, trying in vain to rid himself of his tears as he goes on with, "And I'm sorry for making you wait and using you and lying for so long, and you don't deserve that and I don't deserve you, and I'm sorry you had to pick me, and I'm sorry I'm not Steve, and _fuck_ – I don't just _want_ you." He cuts himself off with a sharp, shuddery breath, biting the inside of his mouth to keep himself from _screaming_ when he says, "I _need_ you. And I don't just _like_ you." He smiles again, lips red and cheeks flushed and eyes damper than the Pacific Ocean. "I'm in _love_ with you. Madly. I mean that with everything in me."

Tony doesn't say anything, but the way he's looking at Loki like his eyes are lightning rods and he's got that organ we like to call a heart stuck in his throat says so much more than words ever could. He's terrified and shocked and overwhelmed all at once, and Loki only ever sees such a raw look on Tony's face when the man has been ranting about California and the day he took a crowbar to his father's Lamborghini and got his nose broken by a fist full of rings, when he's been too twitchy and too talkative and too high on Adderall or when he's been shaking under Loki's hands from alcohol withdrawal, when he's been swearing up and down to Loki that he'd _die_ if he left him, when he's been telling Loki the things that Loki's telling him now – '_Sorry I'm a fuck-up_', '_I'm deeply in love with you_' – and it just hits Loki like a ton of bricks that Tony is just as fucking _scared_ as he is, that Tony might run away from him, that even though Tony's been whispering to Loki that he loves him so much, _so much_, for countless nights since last December, he's only ever been taught to flee from responsibility or commitment, that even though Loki is one of the few people he's actually stayed with for a substantial amount of time, he's still learning that relationships can't only survive on unspoken agreements and waiting for the other person to eventually escape (like they always do). And Loki realizes that he needs to remind Tony that this is what he wanted. He needs to remind Tony that he's not asking for anything Tony wasn't already prepared to give him. He needs to remind Tony that they promised each other something, and that he's excellent at keeping his promises.

"Remember last year, when I told you that I wasn't ready for you then, but that I would be someday?" Loki asks, and when Tony gives him a tiny, ray-of-light of a nod, he finally lets himself cup the man's jaw in his hand and brush his fingers over his cheekbone and say, "I'm ready now."

Remembrance flashes in Tony's eyes one moment, and in the next, he's got Loki almost completely across the center console and as much in his lap as he can possibly get him considering the lack of space in the cockpit of his truck. His fingers are in Loki's hair and he's kissing him so _deeply_ and his mouth is wet and branding and desperate on the other's and he's groaning softly and Loki can feel how beautifully _warm_ he is through the fabric of his sweatshirt and through Tony's Henley and his hands are plastered against the window and their legs are tangled together and Tony's licking into his mouth and he's shuddering above him and then Tony's head is falling against the window and he's panting hot, damp breaths against Loki's lips and his eyes are almost smoldering with heat and his fingers are tightening in Loki's hair and he's saying, "I love you _so much_."

Loki can't help but let out a laugh at that, a laugh of amusement and endearment and unadulterated _joy_, and the way Tony's whole _being_ brightens and the way his expression blooms with happiness and wonder and the way his hands tighten their grip on his sides convinces Loki that he's done the right thing by being honest for once. He replies, "You know I love you, too," and the _look_ Tony gives him, his face alight with glee and his eyes just brimming with adoration – it makes him want to dance in the rain that's steadily falling outside.

"Pinch me," Tony demands a bit breathlessly, slipping one hand out of Loki's hair to grab the man's wrist and guide him towards his shoulder. When Loki laughs again, he insists, "Pinch me or slap me or something! Just do it!"

Loki awkwardly tweaks Tony's chin between his thumb and forefinger, grinning when Tony hum-chuckles in bliss and moves his hands to his sides to pull their bodies flush together and have them kissing again, have his lips traveling down his jaw and neck in a manner that's both possessive and loving. As soon as his mouth is at the junction of Loki's neck and shoulder, he's babbling, "I can't believe you're mine. I can't believe you're _here_. I can't believe you exist, oh my _God_, you're so perfect…"

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," Loki laughs, hissing softly when Tony closes his teeth over his collarbone and bites down hard enough to hurt, if only a little.

"Don't argue with me, y-you divine creature," Tony retorts. He fixes Loki with a pair of eyes that reflect every emotion scattered in the spaces between devotion and terror and euphoria. "I need to show you how much–" He cuts himself off with a thick gulp, craning his neck upwards so that he can speak right against Loki's mouth, quiet and intimate and right where he's the most safe. "I need to show you how much I love you."

"You already have," Loki murmurs, quivering the slightest bit with the strain of having to hold himself up for so long.

"No," Tony replies, giving a brief shake of his head. He pushes them both up into a sitting position (as opposed the half-lying one they were just in), dropping a quick peck on Loki's lips as he says, "No, I haven't. Have I kissed every inch of you yet?"

That's when Loki remembers that no matter how good Tony is with words, his feelings are something he expresses in a primarily physical manner, and suddenly, he's comparing every time he's ever verbally told Tony he loved him to every time he's kissed him or held him or ran his fingers through his hair or wound an arm about his middle. Sure enough, the reception he gets is better when both of their bodies are involved.

In response to Tony's question, Loki simply shakes his head. Tony smirks.

"My point exactly," the man says, reaching around Loki to tug on the handle behind him, effectively unlatching the door as he does, and order, "Get out."

Loki mirrors the smirk Tony's giving him, only hesitating for a moment before backing out of his seat and finding himself standing on the solid ground that is Tony's driveway and getting drenched with rain. He hastily meets Tony at the foot of his front steps, laughing softly when the man just grabs him by the arms and pulls him close, kissing him and squeezing him like the two seconds they were physically separated was torture of the most unbearable and cruel nature, like they aren't just standing in the middle of a rain shower in plain sight of every rich, snooty neighbor Tony has.

"Stop crying, silly," Tony tells him, wiping at the tears still escaping down his cheeks and dragging him up the stairs and onto his porch. "I'd think you'd be happy right now, or something."

Loki keeps his arms around Tony's middle as the man fumbles with his keys, burying his face in the nape of Tony's neck as he replies, nearly whispering, "I am."

Tony pauses, them, house key hanging in its keyhole as he turns to take Loki into his embrace again, to kiss his tear-stained cheek and down to his neck, sucking raindrops off of his skin as he goes. By the time he's come up for air, he's got Loki pressed against the door (oh, how _surprising_), his thigh wedged between the other's and Loki's limbs draped about his shoulders, and he's _laughing_, nuzzling their dripping noses together like they've got all the time in the world to just dwell on every little bit of each other. Loki sighs in frustration (of the good-natured sort, mind you).

"Unlock the door –" he starts to say, but Tony's pulling back and looking him straight in the face and cutting him off with a question delivered so seriously that it takes Loki a few delayed moments to process exactly what he means by it (and he _does_ mean it – _gravely_).

"What if I took you right here, right now?" Tony asks, face straight and solemn and sultry and so deliberate it's insane. "What if I peeled your clothes off and made you mine _exactly_ where we're standing?"

Blood rushes to Loki's cheeks at the image Tony's shoved into his mind, something the man must see (and how could he _not_ when Loki is the goddamn lovechild of Snow White and Dracula?), because his serious expression gives way to the tiniest of smirks as Loki counters, in a surprisingly unflustered tone, "This isn't _The Notebook_."

Tony laughs wholeheartedly at that, swooping in to kiss Loki hard on the lips and pushing him further against the dark red wood behind him as he does. He deftly unlocks the door with the hand he hasn't got resting at the base of Loki's back, grinning the slightest bit and chuckling into the half-inch of space between their mouths, "You didn't answer my question."

"I'd _let _you, okay?" Loki huffs, sliding one arm from around Tony's neck to grope around behind him until his hand finds the doorknob, and without hesitation, he jerks it to the right and kicks the door open. He's nipping at Tony's lips only a second later, practically growling, "At this point, I think I'd let you do _anything_ to me if you just promised not to _stop_."

Tony's grin grows almost hilariously fast at that. "I like this," he says, keeping Loki held tightly in his arms as he half-crowds, half-carries the man into the threshold of his house. He grabs his keys and toes the door back into its frame, not bothering to lock it behind him as he goes on, "You're not pushing me away. You're not telling me to stop. You're actually going to let me have my way with you." He tilts his head a bit, quirking an eyebrow. "You sure I'm not dreaming?"

Loki doesn't answer verbally, just smirks, threads his fingers through the damp mess of Tony's hair, and pulls him into another kiss, one deeper and more insistent, more _demanding_, than the barrage Tony was forcing on him before. Tony moans into the kiss the second Loki parts his lips to let his tongue dart out and taste him, runs the tip of it along the seam of his mouth, coaxes more pleasured, wanting noises out of him. Both of them let out this near-comical, soft, gasping sort of sound in almost complete unison as soon as their tongues touch, and then they're just licking at each other's mouths with such inertia, such slow, _beautiful_ ease, that Loki doesn't know that they've built up such an ardent intensity until they're practically _clinging_ to each other, sucking the breath straight from one another's lungs every time they've spectacularly managed to force their mouths to separate and groaning and growling like two felines in heat. Tony's hands are slipping up the back of Loki's shirt, his fingers tracing each vertebra of his spine like they're travelers wandering down a vaguely familiar path, and _God_, that _has_ to be a fetish of Loki's or something, because every time Tony touches his backbone, Loki starts shivering and writing under his hands like he's been submerged in boiling-cold water.

And then Tony breaks their kiss for only a moment, clasping his hands to the back of Loki's thighs and using the leverage he was with the man's arms wound tightly around his neck to heft him up and off the ground, wrapping his legs about his waist and supporting him with his hips. Loki makes a surprised noise at the action, but anything else he might let escape him disappears into nothing when Tony claims his lips again, feverish and insistent and like lava scorching its way through a village or the ocean sweeping debris away from the shore, when he starts to cross the living room with the obvious objective of taking him to bed. It's a slightly awkward fit, considering Loki's lanky, stalky proportions and Tony's wiry, lean, sturdy physique, but Tony's quite a bit hardier than he looks, and Loki's been carried and dragged around by the man more times than one would consider normal for two male friends.

And _really_, someday Loki will think about the two of them and realize that they were never really _just _friends or exempt from some form of romantic or sexual attraction between them, not when the only reason why they met in the first place is because Tony didn't think twice about making a pass at the one person in their theatre class that nobody wanted or was brave enough to talk to, not when one of the first things they did together as actual, official friends was come to understand that physical contact was something they'd be in more often than not if Tony had anything to do with it and learn how to synchronize rhythms whenever they danced in the vicinity of one another, not when Loki has always been a fifties' era housewife when it comes to Tony in the way that he puts food in his kitchen and cooks him dinner and straightens his shirt collars and nurses him back to health, not when they've been sharing casual kisses and holding each other at night and calling each other things like '_love_' and '_sweetheart_' since last December. Attraction was never the issue, here – _fear_ was always the main thing that stopped them from not wasting a year skipping around their feelings and playing perfectly at verisimilitude without ever crossing the bridge to reality.

It's dark in Tony's room when they enter it, no thanks to the nasty weather and the curtains over the man's windows, but Tony is almost too good at navigating its space while blindly carrying a person of almost equal size and weight through it – something Loki tries and fails not to think about. Tony walks until his shins hit the foot of his bed, and then he's kneeing his way onto it, lowering Loki to the mattress even as he keeps his hands on the backs of his haunches and lets his lips linger on his skin. They stay like that, sharing wet, openmouthed kisses and wound around each other as if they'd _die_ if they weren't, until it's almost unbearable for Loki to be content with the existence of clothing in general and the fact that Tony refuses to put his lips anywhere but on his, because he's got last night _still_ fresh in his mind, because they're _in Tony's bed_ (and you _all_ know what happens there), because the thought of anyone else that's been here before him makes him a little crazily eager to wipe them out in the most aggressive, passionate way possible.

Loki growls quietly, biting hard at Tony's lips and sucking his way down the man's neck, his teeth leaving shallow, pinkish marks wherever they decide to sink into his skin and his fingers roughly pulling at his unruly hair. He closes his lips around Tony's Adam's apple with the intention of leaving a bruise there, one everyone who paid attention might see, trembling at the deep, throaty noises coming out of the man, and _yes_, Tony's _squeezing_ him, relocating his hands to bracket his hips and running them down the insides of his thighs before moving right back up, his thumbs pressing into the dip of his loins, so close to where Loki wants him. Tony doesn't move any further than that, though, doesn't do anything but rub his fingers in small circles on Loki's skin and kiss at his temple, and Loki is kind of going _crazy_ because of it.

"_Tony_," he half-whines, scratching at the man's back through his shirt and nipping sharply at his jaw. Tony just chuckles lowly, dipping his head to catch Loki by the mouth again, and when Loki snarls and pushes into the kiss almost combatively, teeth biting and tongue probing and fingers pulling at his Henley like they'd rip the fabric to shreds if they could, Tony grips his sides and pushes him back against the mattress, onto his elbows. Loki can't help but scowl at the man.

"What?" he huffs, breathless, resisting the urge to rid Tony of his clothing with his teeth alone. When he reaches up to play with the hem of his shirt, Tony easily bats his hand away with a tiny smirk and a laugh.

"You're funny," he chuckles, gazing down at Loki with nothing but want and adoration in his eyes. It occurs to Loki that Tony is in absolutely no hurry at all (odd, considering how eager he was in the truck and on the porch) – a realization that only serves to further frustrate him.

"_What?_" he repeats, more urgent and irritable this time around, his voice rising to an octave that more accurately reflects how desperate he is for Tony to get on with it or touch him or let him do _anything_ besides just lay down.

Tony leans over Loki, bracing himself with an arm at either side of him and his palms wrapped around his wrists like manacles as he kisses him, slowly and deeply and (of course) on the lips. He drags the kiss out for as long as he can, drags it out until Loki's shaking from the lack of oxygen and squirming in his hold, his legs tightening around his waist and his body growing taut with tension.

"Relax," Tony tells him, trailing his mouth to Loki's jaw and up to his earlobe, where he can laugh, "Not everything has to be a fight, you know."

Loki's aware of the fact that Tony's speaking to him honestly and without the intent to hurt him, but he can't help but be a little stung by the man's words. It's in his very _nature_ to be a fighter – he never even _considered_ that things could go any differently for him.

Tony rears back to look at him, touching their noses together and kissing the space below his mouth as he murmurs, "I want you to enjoy this."

"I'd enjoy it either way," Loki argues almost immediately. Tony sucks a kiss to his bottom lip with a knowing smirk.

"Why would you want to move so fast, though?" he asks, genuinely curious.

"Why _wouldn't_ I?" Loki counters, frowning slightly even as Tony nuzzles at his cheek like the affectionate puppy dog he is. "Why wouldn't _you?_"

That forces Tony to look him in the face again, and the man's expression is more serious than it was before when he replies, "I want to cherish every little bit of you. I want to get you as high as you can possibly be for as long as I possibly can. I want you to feel _everything_." His lips quirk into a tiny smile. "_That's_ why I wouldn't."

Loki can't make himself come up with a response to that, can only try to breathe at a normal rate and will himself into calmness and let himself trust that Tony knows what he's doing and isn't simply trying to torture him. He gives Tony a tiny nod of acceptance, and then the man's slipping his hands beneath his sweater and pulling it off of him, exposing his skin to the chilly air in the room.

A wave of self-consciousness that wasn't even a _notion_ to him last night washes over Loki when Tony's eyes rake over his body as if he's never seen it before now, and he tries to tell himself that being shy is ridiculous when a few minutes ago, he was ready to kick the serpent in the Garden of Eden in the mouth for ever tempting Eve and indirectly causing the invention of clothing, when Tony's seen him half-naked before and probably thought the same things he's thinking now, when he _trusts_ Tony, but he's never been totally comfortable with his own physique and Tony's just _drinking_ _him in_ with his eyes without uttering a single word and _well_, nakedness between one set of clothes and another is totally different than nakedness before sex, am I right? Loki fidgets a bit in discomfort, drawing Tony's gaze to his face.

"When's the last time you had sex?" Tony asks, leaning over Loki again and pressing his lips to his temple.

For a moment, Loki's assaulted with disgust and fear and shame – not because of the question itself, but because of the memory it evokes, and he's suddenly acutely aware of how tight Tony's hands feel around his wrists and how very _vulnerable_ he is right now and how Tony's hovering above him without really touching him, and he almost _panics_ because of those thoughts, but that tightness can also be called security, and vulnerability is simply another word for openness, and Tony _is_ touching him, and he's touching him so gently and so lovingly he's going to remember it _years_ from now and still get weak in the knees. Plus, it's just a question – one he shouldn't be afraid to respond to.

But then the answer reveals itself to him and Loki's replying, "Over a year," and Tony's pulling back to give him the most comically flabbergasted look of all _time_ and oh hey, here comes self-consciousness building a nest in Loki's chest again.

"Over a _year?_" Tony echoes, disbelieving.

"Over two," Loki amends. Is that a collective gasp of absolute and utter shock I hear?

"Over _**two**__ years?_" Tony questions, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. When Loki silently lowers his eyes, he starts to shake his head, says, "No, no, no, no, don't be embarrassed. It's just… _two years?_"

"You know I would have told you if I'd slept with someone while we were friends, right?" Loki asks, more to prove a point than to actually obtain an answer.

"Yeah, but–" Tony begins, only to be cut off by Loki before he can go any further.

"And _you_ haven't had sex with anyone since before the summer," Loki points out. His point is slightly invalid when he knows the reason _why_ Tony's remained so oddly celibate for such a long time, that reason being _him_, but he's always been somewhat prone to building arguments on top of less-than-stable foundations (and it's not like Tony will really care about the flimsy little plea he's throwing at him by the time today is over and done with).

Even so, Tony pouts at him, starts to retort, "That's a completely diff–"

"And you know I'm antisocial and incapable of forming relationships with other people," Loki goes on instead of letting Tony tell him something he already knows, sitting up as much as he can without knocking the other's forehead with his own.

"You're also one of the sexiest and most sensual things I've ever seen," Tony practically blurts out, smirking when Loki's eyes widen and his cheeks flush in response to the comment. He tilts his head and sways in close to Loki, their noses bumping when he does, asks, "Why do you think I can't keep my hands or eyes off of you?"

Loki gives an impish little smile, replies, "I thought that maybe it had something to do with your deep, undying love for me, but I could be wrong."

Tony grins at the jest, shaking his head and laughing quietly in bewilderment. "_Two years_," he marvels, craning his neck to kiss along Loki's jawline and to the hypersensitive spot below his ear as he draws his hand down his abdomen, lower and lower, until his fingers are resting on the button of his jeans. "No wonder you're so frustrated."

Loki starts to say something witty and defiant in response to that, but the only thing that comes out of him is a sharp, breathy moan when Tony gets his pants open and slips his hand inside to palm his groin, his mouth gradually working its way down his neck and the weight of his body pressing him into the mattress like gravity keeps fourteen billion feet on the ground and drags ships to the ocean floor without even trying. Loki's back arches up off of the bed and his legs fall open of their own accord as Tony sucks openmouthed kisses along the pale column of his throat and just _touches _him, strokes his fingers over his cock through the thin fabric of his underwear, and Loki can feel the man smiling into his skin – the _bastard_ – and he's absolutely certain in some distant, psychoanalytical corner of his mind that Tony's getting off on being in near complete control of him and everything they're engaged in at the moment, and every breath he inhales feels fucking enormous and he's nearly hyperventilating with pleasure and it feels so boiling-water, broken-fever, core-of-the Earth _warm_ in the pit of his stomach and he doesn't think he's ever been so turned on by anything in his _life_ and his arms are wrapped tight around Tony's shoulders and his fingers are tangled in his damp, wild hair and he's breathing so hard against the side of the man's head because Tony is just fucking _touching him_, so leisurely and lazily and wantonly it almost hurts, and all while he cages him in the arc of his body and mouths fire into his skin.

Then Tony laughs and says, "You're so _perfect_," against his neck, moving his hands away from where Loki's straining and flexing to rest them on his hips. Loki is just coherent enough to get upset at the sudden decrease in attention, but it doesn't take long for he and Tony's mouths meet for the millionth time, doesn't take long for him to pull and tug at Tony's Henley, drag the article up his back and half-murmur, "Your turn."

Thunder rumbles from outside as Tony obliges Loki and leans back to pull his shirt off, and Loki only has a couple of fleeting moments to look at the man and realize just _why_ he was studying him as intensely as he was a few minutes ago before Tony's marking things unfair again by tugging his pants, shoes, and socks off all in one go, and then he's so exposed, he doesn't even know what to do with himself. He just nearly refrains from curling up and hiding from Tony's eyes, which are suddenly all over him again now that he's nearly naked.

Without a word, Tony bows over Loki and presses his lips to his collarbone, easily skirting around the pendant hanging there and ignoring the other's soft growl of irritation. He slowly trails his kisses to Loki's shoulder, lets his mouth linger on the tender, seldom-touched place at the inside of his elbow and the smooth curve of his wrist before he's grazing over his sternum and licking his way downwards, tongue drawing idle patterns and lazy figure-eights on the snowy expanse of Loki's skin. He keeps Loki's hands pinned to the mattress as he dawdles, as he sucks his nipples into his mouth and leaves red, branding marks wherever he sees fit to, and the whole thing is simultaneously infuriating and therapeutic for Loki to endure as obediently and speechlessly as he is, and every time he squirms, Tony squeezes his wrists or nips his skin a little bit harder, and every time he groans, Tony laughs into his chest or leans up to drop a kiss or two on his neck or his chin or his mouth, and every time he kisses him, it's like the rain outside gets so much louder in Loki's head, like he could feel and hear _everything_ if he wanted to, and _really_ – nobody's ever touched Loki like this. Nobody.

Tony stops his torturing for a moment to ask, "What happened?", and when Loki looks down to see what the man's talking about, he finds him hovering over that damned hypertrophic scar on his abdomen. He doesn't have time to prepare himself before Tony's running a finger across the distorted tissue surrounding it, the gnarled bits of skin that pinch and crimp where they meet the scar, and _shit_, his stomach feels like it's devouring itself now, and his whole body is suddenly full of tiny spiders crawling up the inside of his flesh and through his veins, and he's _blushing_, blushing with fear and with shame, and Tony's gazing at him so curiously, and he has to answer, and –

"Car accident," he manages to splutter out in response as soon as he can actually realize that _oh_, _that's_ what bothers him so much about Tony touching him there, _that's_ why he suddenly can't hear anything beyond the breath that's miraculously escaping him. As soon as the words are out of him, Tony's expression darkens with understanding and empathy, and the man watches Loki carefully as he dips his head and brushes his lips over the ridge of the scar like it's something worth worshipping and not the sole bit of physical evidence of everything awful and broken about Loki. He's just barely touching it, but Loki feels like every single nerve in his body is suddenly in that pale little fold of his skin.

He's just barely touching it, and Loki's got tears in his eyes.

"My rib… my rib broke the skin there," Loki mumbles. He doesn't know why he's telling Tony this, but it probably has something to do with the fact that Tony's the only person who's ever really seen and looked at this part of him, the fact that he feels like his scar is a crime he has to explain himself for committing, the fact that Tony's rubbing his thumb over the damn thing like he might unleash a genie if he does it long enough.

"Shh…" Tony hushes him, having heard the tears in Loki's voice. Loki doesn't stop talking, though.

"They put six stitches in there to close it," he goes on, tensing as Tony lets go of his wrists to wrap his arms around his torso and hold him snug against his body. Loki twitches beneath Tony's mouth when the man kisses his scar again, whispers, "It's ugly."

"It's _you_," Tony counters, squeezing Loki and smiling sadly up at him. "And I love you, so I love it."

The man's reply is too simple and sweet and _true_ for Loki to even argue with it. He simply lays back and accepts as Tony experimentally scratches a fingernail over the scar, as the man watches with the utmost intrigue as his body flinches and shakes and writhes like a snake trapped under a rock, and Loki can't stop Tony from pulling him closer and kissing that hypersensitive, too-tender spot once, twice, three times more, again and again until his whole being is entirely composed of shivers and his head is tipping back and he's letting out quiet gasps every time Tony lets his lips linger there a few seconds longer than usual. The rain pours harder, the room grows darker, and Tony makes his way down the flat, milky plane of Loki's abdomen.

When Tony reaches Loki's hips, he doesn't hesitate to peel the waistband of his underwear back, to inch the elastic over his skin so that he can lick and kiss at his Adonis lines, his tongue dipping into the curves of his pelvis as he travels further down. Loki's restless and worked up again, waiting for Tony to expose him some more, wanting it like he's never wanted anything before, but Tony's just _taking_ _his time_ focusing on one singular spot on his left hip – a freckle, something that's almost impossible to make out in the darkness of his room. Loki huffs, impatient, when Tony lightly nips at him, when he playfully closes his canines around the bone of his hip, when he blows cool air where he's left saliva and tiny indentations on his skin with his tongue and his teeth.

"I like your underwear," Tony comments offhandedly, rubbing his thumb almost cruelly over the Charmander printed across the front of Loki's briefs.

"I hate you," Loki snaps in reply, sitting up on his elbows to stare down at Tony and fix him with a look that conveys only a fraction of his vexation.

"I think you were made for me," Tony rambles on in spite of Loki's irritation, and just as Loki, unraveled and emotional and on the verge of splitting at the seams with sexual frustration and misplaced nostalgia and unparalleled passion, starts to contradict and curse him, Tony gives him a wordless, lopsided smirk and swiftly tugs his underwear down and off of him, and Loki is silent and bare and nervous and blushing and aroused all at once, and Tony _still _has the upper hand, and life is simply refusing to be fair.

"I also think I like this better," Tony notes. What an asshole.

"I think you're too dressed," Loki counters a bit unsteadily, watching anxiously as Tony takes him in, as he rubs a hand up the back of his thigh and bites his lip against God knows what.

"I think I agree with you," Tony replies a bit absently, sitting up and moving to shed his own pants (and of course, not his underwear). He kneels between Loki's legs once his jeans have been forgotten on the floor, deftly hooking one of his knees over his shoulder and trailing long, damp kisses down the inside of his trembling thighs, and oh _yeah_, Loki's seriously shaking with anxiety, clutching at the messy, wrinkled sheets beneath his fingers as Tony laves at his skin and nuzzles closer to his groin, because this man has been his _best friend_ for a whole _year_ and he's got his mouth sucking circular spots of fire in places only one person's ever touched before, and definitely _not _with their lips.

"Stop that," Tony eventually murmurs into his thigh, gently grazing his incisors over the porcelain-white, extraordinarily tender skin there.

"Stop what?" Loki asks, voice a mere afterthought of a whisper. Tony's dark, smoldering eyes flick upwards to lock onto his own, a small smile gracing his face and a spark of heat in his gaze.

"Stop anticipating," Tony orders gently, circling his thumb right where Loki's leg meets his pelvis. He's only inches away from Loki's steadily growing erection, where Loki needs him to be, and Loki feels like he might go _insane_ if he doesn't just _touch_ him again, even if only for a few seconds.

"But I want you so much," Loki insists. He fails to keep the nearly incapacitating desperation out of his words, fails to keep himself from quivering when he discovers that Tony's head is practically _in his lap_, his breath ghosting over the head of his cock and his eyes fixed on his. Tony squeezes his thighs with a smirk.

"I want you, too," he replies, angling his head so that his hair brushes against Loki's skin in a way so minute but so incredibly _tangible_ it sends a sharp tremor up his spine. His smirk turns knowing and vague a second before he adds, "I just want you slowly."

As soon as the last word passes between Tony's lips, the man's tongue is pressing hotly against the tip of Loki's cock and tonguing at the slit of him, and it takes all the self-control he has and a moan so asthmatic it's almost _painful_ as it escapes him for Loki to not come flying out of his skin right then and there. Tony watches him, wolfish and totally transfixed, as he mouths his way down his shaft, as he sucks and kisses lower and lower, as he sits up, wrapping his arms securely around his waist, and drags Loki's hips up and off the bed, licking a thick stripe of saliva straight from the crest of his head to the tight ring of muscle surrounding his entrance, slipping his tongue inside of him and fucking him with his mouth, over and over until Loki's gasping words start to mesh together and he's dripping wet with precome, his whole body flushed with pleasure, his hair a black halo splayed across the pillow beneath it, his eyes rolling back in his head until they close, his fingers digging into the mattress.

"You don't know how beautiful you are right now," Tony says, his eyes wild with lust and still glued to Loki's face as he plasters kisses all over the rosy skin on the inside of his thigh. "You don't know how long I've wanted to get you this way."

"I-I do," Loki manages after a moment of miraculous thought, breath catching uncomfortably in his throat and ripping out of him in the form of a gasp when Tony licks across his hole, and while he might have thought that something like this was pretty gross before now, when Tony is swirling the tip of his tongue around his entrance in a way that _cannot_ be human and mouthing at every erogenous zone he can find between his legs and watching him so damn _hungrily_, he _knows_ he's going to dream about this for nights on end, _knows_ he's going to be _begging_ for Tony to be here every time they find themselves in bed and in the mood to get a little more than intimate.

"No, you don't," Tony argues with a bright, arrogant grin. He slips a hand down Loki's front, something fiery and possessive lighting up in his eyes every time Loki twitches and squirms, and he asks, "Remember when you read that poem last year in theatre, the one about the moon and kisses and dying for love?"

Loki laughs breathlessly at the arbitrariness of the question, at the position they're in, at the fact that Tony's recalling something so insignificant as he's memorizing the curves and the dips and the softness of his groin with his tastebuds alone. "Yes," he half-chuckles, half-groans, peering up at Tony from where he's almost bent in half.

"That's when I knew," Tony says. He lowers Loki back down to the mattress so that he can look at him more directly, his mouth dragging up his thigh and briefly puckering against his calf as he does. "That's when I knew you were going to end up in my bed one day."

Loki laughs again, turning his face halfway into Tony's pillow without even thinking about how he's tucking himself away by doing so, but Tony is leaning over him, slipping between his legs and caging him in his arms and dropping soft kisses along his jaw and pressing him into the bed so that it's _impossible _for him to hide, and he's forcing him to look at him, and he's leaning their foreheads together and gazing at him with such open thirst and devotion, and he's sighing into the small space between their lips, sighing like he's praying to _God_, sighing, "Oh, _Loki_."

"Yes?" Loki finds himself replying, his voice all low and nearly nonexistent again. Tony melts at the sound of him, makes this purring, hot-candle-wax sort of noise and kisses him hard on the mouth, and Loki's not entirely sure what to do with the fact that another human being has the potential to lose their mind simply because they've heard him speak in hushed, breathy tones.

He doesn't have much time to dwell on that thought, though, because as soon as Tony's pulled their lips apart, he's whispering, _promising_, "I'm gonna fuck you, now," and for some reason, that statement has Loki realizing that more than anything, more than he's aroused or scared or anxious or shocked, he's _happy_. For the first time in a long time, he's genuinely _happy_. He's not sure what to do with that either.

"I love you," Loki whispers as Tony raises his head and reaches over to the nightstand, craning his neck to kiss at Tony's smooth collarbones and winding his lanky arms around the man's chest. Tony stops what he's doing to look at him again, his arm still outstretched towards the bedside table, and what Loki sees in his eyes is enough to send his heart flying through the floor.

It occurs to him then that they're an article away from being completely naked and still a bit damp from the rain and kind of sweaty and slightly ungroomed and a little hungover and sore from all the dancing they did last night and tangled together like two intertwining vines in the middle of Tony's absurdly rich, silken-sheeted bed – a bed they've laughed and talked and _cried_ in more than they've even _thought_ about having sex in – that what they're about to do is going to hurt some and things might crash and burn by tomorrow morning and everybody's going to know about them and Steve and Thor and Fandral and Kurt and Odin and Freyr and everyone else is still going to exist after they're done, that the two of them are generally a grand mess of a people and have no business existing together when they're basically the human equivalent of a firestorm and a blizzard and could rip each other apart as easily as they could heal every wound etched into their skeletons, but Loki doesn't _care_, can't even imagine things being any different or less imperfect than they are now, and he knows by the way Tony smiles at him that he doesn't care either.

"I love you, too," he says, dropping a quick, firm kiss on Loki's brow and ducking his head to nuzzle at his nose. "So much." Tony's voice is the kind of slurring and sweet that only ever accompanies honest, so-much-you-could-die sort of love, and that almost makes Loki never want to show his face to anyone but him ever again.

When Tony brings his arm back over, he's got a bottle of lube in his hand – something Loki's seen before when he's nursed him back to health and cleaned up around his house. He snaps the cap open and makes to start coating his fingers with the oily substance, but Loki grabs the tube from him before he can get a drop out, letting out a breathless, "Give me," and doing the job himself.

"Bossy…" Tony starts to say, a devious smirk crawling halfway onto his face before it's stopped and forced to go slack when Loki reaches down between his legs and probes a slick index finger against his already wet entrance. Tony's eyes flick between Loki's fingers and his face, his pupils nearly overtaking his irises in his lust, and he moves his hands to squeeze the flesh just above Loki's hips, rubs his thumbs into the dip of his loins and watches him as he slowly circles two fingers around his hole like it's the most captivating thing he's ever seen in his life.

"Oh my God," Loki hears him murmur when he carefully begins to slip the tip of his forefinger inside of himself, and he's able to catch the sharp hitch of Tony's breath even as his head tips back and he hisses through the initial anxiety and discomfort of being penetrated. He wills himself to relax a thousand times for every second that passes, lets his body arch into his own touch and impales himself deeper.

When he cracks his eyes open and peers at Tony from beneath the fringe of his lashes, the man looks like he's drowning in the sight of him.

"Don't lose it yet," Loki half-whispers, half-laughs, drawing Tony's eyes to his and smirking a bit. "I haven't even gotten to a second finger." Ironically, he starts to swirl another fingertip around his entrance just as he's punctuating that statement. He can only watch as Tony breaks down a little more than he already has in response.

"Can I kiss you?" Tony blurts, impossibly dazed and nearly bruising Loki where he's got him by the hips. When Loki simply smiles and chuckles quietly, he leans forward to peck at his chin, to trail soft butterflies down his jaw and to his ear, and Loki's groaning as he works a second and a third digit inside his own warmth, groaning as he moves his fingers in languid, easing thrusts, groaning as Tony babbles sweet nonsense into his skin, things like "You're so beautiful," and "How are you even real?" and "I want to take you apart."

As soon as Loki's found the part of him that makes him see stars with pleasure and has verbally made it clear that he's done preparing himself, Tony's practically ripping his underwear off, slicking himself up, and tugging Loki into his lap so that he can pull him up and kiss him properly on the lips, and Loki's got his arms wound around the man's shoulders and his fingernails digging into his back and his thighs spread astride his hips and his knees driven into the mattress, and there's thunder clapping in the distance as if to applaud the both of them when Tony aligns the head of his cock with Loki's entrance, absently brushes their lips together, and repeats himself like the skipping, scratched, delayed CD his mind turns into when they're together, "So much."

It's like the whole world is ripping itself in two when Tony slowly, carefully pushes himself inside. Loki's trying to tether himself to the feeling of the man's hands on his hip and the small of his back, but _fuck_ is this uncomfortable, and even though he was expecting the pain, he can't help but whine through it and let out a quiet, breathless curse the moment Tony's bottomed out – "_Shit_."

"I'm hurting you," Tony says, his fingers tightening against Loki's skin and his words coming out like an imperative instead of a question. He's shaking with anticipation and watching Loki with the most torn look in his eyes, watching him like he's caught between handling him as cautiously as he would a porcelain doll and just fucking into him as aggressively as he possibly can, and the hazy darkness of his irises and pupils is something Loki would be perfectly okay with getting lost in, and a thought like that is sort of terrifying when it's running through _his _mind.

"No, no," Loki replies almost too fast, pressing his forehead into Tony's and briefly reveling in the thought of how their hair will tangle together the longer he keeps them there. He rolls his hips down the slightest bit, listens to the way Tony moans softly and feels the warm gust of breath that leaves the man pass over his lips as he pants, "I'm not going to break."

"But I don't want to hu–" Tony starts to argue, but he's quickly cut off when Loki pulls himself up to the tip of his cock and thrusts himself back down, insistent and wanting and nearly hyperventilating with impatience. That's all the encouragement it takes for him to wrap his arms around Loki, his fingers clutching at his shoulder and hooking around his hip, and start moving.

It's all clumsy and uncoordinated at first, both of them moving at different speeds with Loki fucking himself in short, desperate rolls and Tony attempting in vain to slow him down. They eventually find a rhythm, though, Tony letting Loki command every rock and thrust so long as he keeps a steady pace, and Tony's mouth is mapping the skin along the side of his neck and his shoulder, sucking hickeys all over the space he's whispered into on nights when Loki's felt generous or lonely enough to let him be intimate with him, and Loki's scratching shallow red lines into Tony's back and shivering at the feeling of being so full, letting out these tiny, self-conscious little moans of, "Ah, _ah_, _**ah**_," every time Tony buries himself to the hilt inside him, and there the rain goes again, beating down on the roof and sending thunder rolling in time with every move they make.

Every few seconds, Tony will whisper into Loki's curls or kiss '_I love you_' against his temple, and Loki will remember the time Tony laughed those words at him for the very first time without even thinking about it last November, or the time Tony laid his sweaty, shaking head in his lap and managed to choke out his feelings through his tears and his dripping lips only a month later, or the time he plastered nineteen stupid store-bought Valentines and one he made himself to his bathroom mirror last Valentine's Day when he'd been distracted by the very intentional mess the man had made in his kitchen, or the time Thor moved in with him two days before the semester started and Tony came barging in to save him but only ended up sitting with him in his backyard for two hours and letting him lie against his chest and telling him that things were going to be alright simply because he could still make Loki laugh with his silly, silly jokes that have been cheesier than Kraft Singles since the first time he started telling them. And Loki will remember that Tony is his best friend, and his best friend is loving him with every snap of his hips and pinch of his fingers, which are now pushing into his hair and wrapping around the back of his neck like two beautiful reminders of every instant they've touched him and made him realize that physical contact is _okay_, even preferable.

Tony presses their mouths together, coaxing his tongue between Loki's already parted, already damp lips and groaning when Loki tightens his grip on him and rocks them together a bit harder than he was before. Both of them are losing control, now, Tony's thrusts turning rough and forceful and erratic and Loki's teeth catching the man's top lip between them and his voice rising in both pitch and volume, especially when Tony shifts his angle just enough to hit him exactly where he wants and in a place that has him keening-moaning-gasping, "Oh _fuck_, there, _please_, Tony, _**there**_ –"

"Come on, baby," Tony huffs, pushing upwards into Loki with the sole intention of getting him off, actions quick and frenzied and almost painful as he tangles his digits in the inky curls at the nape of his neck. "Come for me."

When Loki simply answers him with a high, breathless prayer of a moan, Tony grabs him almost bruisingly tight by the waist and holds him flush against him as he fucks into him, hard and fast and like an expert losing his touch in the sheer grandness of his endeavor, and they're shaking, and all Loki can hear is the sound of their skin slapping together and Tony murmuring nothing against his jaw and his own lungs trying to keep up with how fast his breath whistles out of him like a thief zipping through a crowd of angels and the rain and the rain and the _rain_, and _goddamn_, he's fucking _drowning_ in this, in how _good_ this is and in how much he _wants_, in how much his thighs and hips ache and the too-sweet, too-heavy warmth spreading up from the core of him to his chest and his head until his heart is beating its way out of his rib cage and he's feeling dizzy with pleasure, and it hurts but it feels perfect all at once, and Tony's got his hands on his everything, and he's thinking about when Tony would slip out of one of their beds while he thought Loki was sleeping and come back and tell him that he dreamt about making love to him until he was crying with pleasure, and he's pretty sure he's on the verge doing just that when he sobs Tony's name and comes flying apart in his arms, head hanging over his shoulder, hair more damp with sweat than with rainwater, breath lost in the crook of Tony's neck, body quaking with his orgasm.

Loki's just managing to whisper, "_Tony_…" into the barely-audible, barely-recognizable zone of absolute weightlessness he's finding himself in before Tony's lifting his ragdoll frame off of his lap, pushing him into the mattress, sliding between his thighs, and rutting against his pelvis, smearing his wetness in the hollow where Loki's leg meets his groin. Loki can only gaze up at the man, overwhelmed and close to tears, as he grinds himself to completion, his hands splayed at either side of his head and his expression so fucked-out and stupefied he almost looks lost, and Tony's pressing their brows together and coming with a choked moan in mere moments, his eyes dazed but undoubtedly focused on Loki's.

They stay like that, quivering and speechless and simply sharing oxygen, for what feels like an eternity and a half but is probably just a few minutes. Loki feels like he's only breathing half as much as he should be for the entirety of it, and the tightness in his chest doesn't get better even when Tony buries his face in his neck and leaves a slow, moist, openmouthed kiss right above his collarbone, even when Tony pulls away from him and stumbles out of bed with a mumbled promise of, "I'll be right back," and the air is all his to take in.

He realizes as soon as he's half-bathed in the light from Tony's bathroom that he's not breathing because he's going to cry, and he doesn't understand why he's crying; only that he is, and he doesn't know if he's tremendously elated or completely wrecked or both; only that he is.

When Tony comes crawling back onto the mattress and finds him staring at the ceiling with moisture on his face, he looks like a war of his own creation has just started and he's standing right in the middle of the battleground.

"What did I do?" he immediately asks. That brings a sad smile to Loki's face.

"Everything, silly," he whispers. "What makes you think that's a bad thing?"

Tony must remember the Facebook conversation they had yesterday morning, because he smirks ever so slightly at his words. "You're crying," he replies, leaning over him and swiping the washcloth he snatched from the bathroom over the mess of semen on Loki's abdomen. A small part of Loki is irritated at the gesture (hasn't it become pretty apparent by now that he _hates_ being taken care of?), but he pushes it aside in favor of being lazy and gelatinous.

"I'm emotional," he says as if to correct Tony, blinking a tiny stream of tears down his temple and into his hair. Every part of him feels soaked – with sweat, with sex, with water, with rain, with _Tony_ – and when he tries to move, his hips start to scream fire at him like he's a burning building and there are people that need to get out of him before he collapses.

"You're always that way," Tony points out, carelessly tossing the washcloth over the edge of the bed before moving to lie next to Loki, on his side and with his head propped against his hand. His eyes sweep the length Loki's body – Loki can sense them – and he doesn't say anything more than that, but Loki can feel the energy thrumming through the man and radiating off of him and he knows he wants to touch him again – he's just not sure if he's allowed to.

Groaning softly at the discomfort of movement, Loki turns onto his own side to face Tony. Looking at him this way is different when they've just had sex, because it's not just the two of them lying in the middle of the mattress and talking about the nonsense that runs through their heads, it's the two of them in love and wondering what they are and being amazed at each other's existence and the fact that they've overlapped like they have. And Loki doesn't think he'll ever be the same when he sees Tony watching him like he's just bedded a god or an angel or something.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Tony murmurs.

Loki does.

"You _are_ an angel," is what Tony laughs in response.

"That's not what you should have gotten from that," Loki hums, sniffling quietly, his voice damp and muted and his eyes dripping liquid aftertaste onto Tony's pillow. He reaches between them to thread his fingers with Tony's, tired of waiting for the man to realize that it's alright for them to touch. "I don't think I'm going to be the same now."

"Is that bad?" Tony asks, squeezing Loki's digits between his own.

Loki shrugs as much as he can in his position, says, "You tell me."

This surprisingly, unusually gentle smile slowly finds its way onto Tony's face after those three words have left Loki, and instead of answering him verbally, Tony closes the distance between them and kisses him, wraps his arms around his middle and pulls him close and tangles their limbs together and _kisses_ him until he's shivering with tears and unable to breathe. And Loki thinks that his eternally changed state of being isn't bad at all.

"I love you," Tony whispers into the humid air around Loki's mouth. "I don't even know what the hell I was doing before I found you. I can't remember why I liked it so much."

"That's probably because you didn't like it at all," Loki notes, only a little anxious. Tony nips at his bottom lip, makes him smile for that.

"What made you come around?" Tony questions, and his word choice is crappy but the only way he can ask what he's trying to, and both of them know that, so neither of them get upset.

"I think it was you almost crying last Sunday because I had to leave," Loki answers. Tony laughs instead of getting embarrassed like Loki half-expected him to, laughs as he adds, "It was when I was driving home in tears that I realized I've probably been in love with you since July."

"What happened in July?" Tony chuckles, nuzzling their noses together and dropping a soft kiss on the skin above Loki's mouth.

"You drove us to the edge of town and we took pictures of each other because you knew how uncomfortable fairs made me and you were going to go with Pepper and Rhodey anyway," Loki says, sniffling again and mentally condemning his habit of getting a runny nose when he cries. "And then you spent that half a week at my house because I told you that I usually hated the summer because I had always gone through it alone, and you dragged me to Blockbuster and Wal-Mart and rented and bought all these movies that I said I wanted to see just because I wanted to see them." He gives Tony a tiny, pursed smile. "You know, I didn't even want _Big Fish_ or _Chaplin_ or _Inception_. I just wanted to know if you'd still get them for me."

"You _liked_ them," Tony indicates, and the fact that he doesn't even get affronted or indignant, not even for the sake of pretentiousness or getting under Loki's skin, is kind of beautiful. It really is.

"I'd always done that stuff for you, though," Tony goes on when Loki doesn't say anything. He gives him a somewhat inquisitive look, quirks an eyebrow the slightest bit. "What made July different?"

That throws Loki for a loop. He narrows his eyes in thought, racks his brain for an answer, but nothing comes to him save for the plan X assumption that he's most likely loved Tony longer than what makes sense to him and simply hasn't a clue how to identify his feelings when they're peering between books at him in the library or vomiting in his mother's toilet and cursing God and their father and God and their father and – more than anything – their _father_ or singing him Whitney Houston karaoke in front of everybody he hates or driving him around at eleven o'clock at night for no apparent reason other than '_I like you_' or simply walking up to him and presenting themselves as a complete an utter nuisance, a bug that needs to be smashed but refuses to die because it likes the way his eyebrows move when he gets irritated.

Tony seems to understand why Loki neglects to reply to his question, because instead of pushing him or waiting, he begins to talk about something else, and Tony likes to talk, and Loki likes to listen to him.

"Last night…" he starts to say, tightening his embrace around Loki and pausing to drop a soft kiss to his temple when he inhales a semi-sharp, apprehensive breath through his nose. "Last night, after I left your house, I felt like I was going to crash my truck and not care what happened when and if I did."

"Tony…" Loki whines quietly, wanting to say more but unable to when Tony is squeezing him and carefully trailing his mouth down his jaw. The only thing he _can_ do is wind his arms around the man in turn, hold him close and listen to the way his breath leaves him in heavy, deep gusts of air.

"I thought about you, though," Tony goes on. "I thought about how you were hurting and I kind of wanted to crash that much more because of it." He laughs lowly, bitterly. "I thought about turning around and going to save you, but I knew that would have only fucked things up even more. I thought about the poem you read, and what you said about dying for love and how you said it and the look in your eyes when you did, and I thought that maybe you were telling me I was going to think things like that about you one day. Because I'm pretty sure I'd die for you." He turns his head just enough to look Loki in the eyes and smile. "Even if you wouldn't do the same for me."

Loki can't speak. He can't say a damn thing and he hates himself for it, but that's fine, because Tony keeps talking, and Tony likes to talk, and _goddammit_ – Loki likes to listen to him more than he likes to do almost anything else in the world.

"I thought all these awful things about you," Tony concedes, and he's speaking bashfully now, speaking as if he's admitting to a horrible wrongdoing when in all actuality, he might as well be saying '_I thought about you_', because that's the gist of what Loki hears. "I thought about… how drunk you were. And I don't think I like you drunk. I don't even like _me_ drunk, but seeing you that way made everything worse. And I thought about every time I'd ever thought to myself that this was going to be the day you fell in love with me but you didn't, and I was so fucking scared that yesterday was going to be one of those days, except it'd have been the worst of those days because you let me in so much, and then you would have shut me out and been such a terrible person to me, but I still would have loved you and I still would have died for you, and I've never acted like that or felt like that about anybody." He lays his head in the crook of Loki's neck. "And I don't know why it's you, but it's _you_ and I think you're perfect even though I know you're not and I could care less about anything going on in my life when you're crying and none of the bad things about you matter to me when you're smiling. And I think that more than you confuse and infuriate me, you make me feel happy and…" He pauses, and Loki listens to him swallow and struggle to get his words out, and in that moment, he feels like absolute _shit_ because he knows Tony only feels like he has to say all this because verbal communication is where Loki's comfort zone is, and even though Tony likes to talk and Loki likes to listen, Tony would rather just make love to him all over again to tell him the things he's trying to choke out right now, and Loki _knows _that, and he feels like if Tony just kissed him for a few hours, he'd understand exactly what he wants to say.

"Tony–" Loki says at the same time Tony sighs, "You make me feel safe," and it makes sense why Tony would have such a hard time voicing that, because Tony Stark _never_ feels safe, doesn't even know the definition of the word '_safe_', and that makes Loki cry just a little bit harder.

"I thought about that when I got home," Tony says, quiet. "How crazy that is. I thought about how, for whatever reason, your atoms came together and made you, and you are a wild, unstable, hilarious thing that somehow makes me feel more than okay every time you cross my mind. I thought about how bits of you were still all around my house because you spend a lot of time here, and how all the photons of light that get caught in your eyes are still drifting around, and the particles you've disturbed when you've smiled, or danced, or ran your fingers through your hair, or when you've cooked or brushed your teeth or turned over when you've slept, and how much of the thermal energy you've given off still exists in this room, and how everything you've touched still has your DNA all over it, and I don't know how I put this all together, but I thought about how much of you is around me even when you're not physically with me, and that made it alright for me to go to sleep, and that's fucking _insane_ when you're just one arrangement of atoms in trillions and I didn't even know if you loved me or not."

Tony moves away to look at Loki directly, and Loki finds himself holding his breath as the man brings a hand around to drag his thumb through the wetness beneath his eye. He realizes that Tony's wiped his tears for a whole year now, realizes how happy that makes him feel when the man kisses that moisture away and smiles into his skin.

"But I do love you," Tony mumbles against his cheek, pulling him close again. "And I'm going to love you no matter what happens or what you do to me. You can run me over with your car and I'd still give my life for you."

Loki laughs at the horror in that statement, squeezes his arms around Tony and kisses the spot below his earlobe and lets himself melt into the man's embrace as he replies, "Ditto."

The grin Tony gives him is enough to kill him twenty times over, and then some.

It's after Tony's pulled a comforter over them and snuggled into Loki's chest and just began to doze off when Loki's answer comes to him. He runs a gentle index finger along the curve of the Tony's shoulder and whispers his name, quietly so that he won't disturb him if he's entrenched deep enough in the slumber he most likely needs after having spent God knows how long mulling over his feelings last night.

"Hm?" Tony hums a few seconds later, unmoving.

"I think I know what made July different," he murmurs into Tony's hair. Tony lifts his head, peers up at him with half-lidded eyes and a lazy smile that easily has the potential to melt steel.

"Tell me," he whispers, his fingers idly thrumming at the base of Loki's back like he's a guitar needing to be played.

Loki cranes his neck just enough to touch he and Tony's foreheads together, watches Tony's eyes slide closed and his smile curl wider across his face as he says, "It's so easy for me to hate everything and everybody at that time of the year, and I didn't hate you. Not one bit, not for one second. I didn't hate you at all."

"You loved me, right?" Tony drawls, not opening his eyes.

"More than anything," Loki promises. Tony kisses him, then, slow and deep and right into oblivion, until he can't even hear the rain over the sound of their mouths moving together.

* * *

It's drizzling when he wakes up. The whole room looks like it's been painted in shades of incandescent yellow and orange a few moments after he opens his eyes, and its usual colors of red and blue take awhile to show themselves, to divide themselves out of the sleep-tinted haze of his vision. It's warm, too, warm and like waking up in the nineties, when the heater was something Mother made sure to keep on all night so that everyone could wake up comfortably, and his head feels heavy and fuzzy where it lies. His hips and back are aching. His hair is a tangled mess. His skin crawls with dried sweat and water. He is alone.

Loki casts his eyes about the room, searching, but he doesn't find Tony. The man's computer is humming with power, though, not like it was when they first came tumbling in, and the lamp is switched on. Those are the only two signs of life or change Loki can find, and he realizes with something like adoration that Tony probably made sure not to disturb him when he got up. He smiles at the ceiling.

He's just sat up and prepared to roll himself out of bed when Tony appears in the doorway, a pair of sweatpants hanging off of his hips and a hand scratching through his wild hair. The man stops almost comically fast when he sees Loki's eyes, which are clearly open and focused on him, and several moments pass before he smiles another one of those oddly gentle smiles – things that almost _never_ appear on _his_ face – and ambles over to the side of the bed Loki's on. Loki can only return the smile for a second before Tony's sitting on the edge of the mattress and wrapping his arms around him and kissing him, hands like reminders, eyes like lightning rods.

He kisses him back, and it's the second time he feels genuinely happy today.

* * *

**I always think of millions of things to say to you guys after I'm finished with the chapter, but every time I finish, I forget all of them.**

**I'm sorry. I really am. I'm sorry my life and my feelings have made it so hard for me to finish this in a timely fashion, but it's summertime again, so hopefully that will make it a lot, lot, lot easier for me to write my ass off like I so desperately want to and can't when school is taking the piss out of me.**

**Thanks/kudos to: **

**- Arlet, my aye-aye baby – I really cannot thank you more for everything you've done and how happy you've made me, and I love you so that much I'm in tears typing this. You are fucking perfect.  
****- Heather, my Clint – you are honestly one of my best friends, and even though I don't believe in God, I'm perfectly okay with thanking Him for possibly giving me a friend as amazing as you. My favie.  
****- Lani, my Fandral – I cannot even express how much happiness you've given me and how much you've made me laugh and made me feel welcome and, no pun or joke intended, **_**safe**_**.  
****- Courtney, my Thor – every time I think about how I found you and the things you said about **_**Brothers**_** before you even knew me, life gets a little bit brighter. You're one of my closest friends. You made it possible for me to do go so far. Thank you.  
****- Kae, my Tony, I adore everything you do for me and everything you are and I couldn't ask for a more perfect friend and a more perfect Tony. I promise to write you soon. I love you dearly.  
****- Zack – I'm not sure if you're reading this, but if you are, thank you, and sorry, and I love you. A lot.  
****- Toni – I'm not sure if you're reading this either, but this is for you, too. You're perfect and I adore you.  
****- Everybody else who reads this nonsense – thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Your comments mean the world to me even if I haven't been able to get to them immediately, I promise.**

**- Gabi.**


	19. Squares, Part I

**Title: **Squares, Part I.  
**Rating: **T for language.  
**Word Count:** ~26,480  
**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Tony Stark, Sif.  
**Summary: **Loki is lying on the kitchen floor – leg broken, pride _obliterated_, and completely soaked from head-to-toe – and Thor is standing in the doorway with a fucking _hard_-_on_. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN: **I'm going to start this off by saying that this is a birthday present for my dearest, most darling Paula, who is honestly one of the best friends I could ever ask for and my spirit animal and my everything wonderful in the world. Uhm, there's a reference to _The Notebook_ in here that may or may not be too understandable unless you've read the book or seen the movie. Also, have some song suggestions: _Hey Ya_, Matt Weddle; _Valerie_, Amy Winehouse; _Hero_, Enrique Iglesias; _If it Makes You Happy_, Sheryl Crow. Enjoy.

* * *

He calls him '_turtledove_'. It's the first pet name he rewards him with after they've officially become a couple, and Loki thinks it's the sweetest thing he's ever been called in his life.

Turtledove. _Turtledove_. It may be sappy and disgusting and altogether too sugary, but it's also a seal of authenticity in the way that it's Loki's and Loki's alone – Tony wouldn't ever call anyone _but_ him '_turtledove_', nor would he ever utter the name loudly or in the presence of others. '_Turtledove_' is something he whispers to him when they sit close together, something he tells him when they're on the phone late at night, something that will show up in their texts and something that will wake Loki up once the sun has risen – "Good morning, turtledove."

And Tony likes to find new ways to tell him he loves him on Google Translate and in language dictionaries all over the Internet, likes to call him just to tell him, "_Je t'adore_," and sweep him up into his arms and laugh, "_Te amo_," and pinch his side and whisper into the space right below his ear, "_Ich liebe dich_", and Loki knows that every time Tony starts speaking words that sound unfamiliar on his tongue but for the inflection with which he says them, he's letting him know that three words as common and English as '_I_', '_love_', and '_you_' aren't enough to describe what he feels for him. And he knows that Tony knows he feels the same when he texts him whole paragraphs about his heart in French, the opening lines of which almost always say, "_Vous avez mon coeur, mon amour; chaque partie de ca, toujours._"

Tony's also learned not to kiss him on the lips after they've woken up together, not when they have morning breath and when Loki will threaten to kick his ass if he puts his mouth anywhere near his before he's brushed his teeth. Instead, he'll touch their foreheads together or nuzzle Loki's nose, and he'll laugh to himself every time Loki rewards him with a smile or inches across the two centimeters of space separating them to fold himself into his body. Loki hardly ever hesitates to do the latter, because Tony is a fucking furnace in the morning and will always drag him into the sweetest and warmest of embraces when he asks for them, and that's kind of the most perfect thing in their relationship Loki can think of.

Actually, he thinks that about almost everything in their relationship. Isn't that funny?

* * *

October turns out to be an awfully rainy month. This is what Loki finds himself thinking when he comes home one Thursday afternoon, drenched and chilled to the bone and curly-haired and not at all ready to head off to work in an hour and a half. He isn't greeted by anything or anyone when he enters his house, not a hulking mountain of a brother or furry firecracker of a dog or a grand mess to pick up or the sweet sounds of Led Zeppelin and Eminem blasting down the hallway. The shower isn't running. There's no hazardous waste spilling from the kitchen. Everything is perfectly, insanely, _impossibly_ quiet, and Loki actually has to pause and make sure he's alive and/or conscious when he realizes this.

He's halfway through the thought that he might have dreamt up the past two months of his shared residence with Thor when the fact that Fenrir isn't all over his legs and making gravity the most awful thing to ever exist really registers to him, and it takes him all of two seconds to put together that _one _– the husky isn't in his room, because if he was, he'd be attacking the door quite noisily, and _two_ – he could be absolutely _anywhere_ at the moment. And here's what his mind says to him when that little gem of dread crosses it:

_1. Think about every place in your neighborhood Fenrir could possibly be._

2. _Make that your whole town._

3._ Think about him lost in the rain,_

4. _or maybe about him alone and crying for you,_

5. _or even about all the shitheaded little girls and boys that will find him and make him their own – _

6. _but how unrealistic is it to dream of somewhat bittersweet circumstances when they can so much more easily be just bitter?_

7. _He probably got ran over by a car._

8. _It would make sense in this weather._

9. _He probably got ran over by a car._

10. _He's dead._

Loki's dropping his backpack to the floor and rushing into the kitchen faster than you can say '_sports utility vehicle_', practically ripping the back door open and stepping onto the patio just as quickly, and lo and behold – there is his dog, sopping wet and gallivanting around in the middle of the backyard like something straight out of a Disney movie complete with animals miraculously performing musical numbers, mud licking up to his belly and coating his legs and muzzle, body a lean, mean, too-happy-to-be-playing-in-this-damned-October-rain machine. His food bowl is devoid of kibble but full of rainwater – an observation that lets Loki know that Fenrir's been out here since before the angels began what's come to be their daily Nicholas Sparks marathon and decided to drown the Earth (and by _the Earth_, I mean _Sidney_) in their tears. And that means that Thor let him out earlier and neglected to bring him back inside before Allie's parents forbid her from seeing Noah. And that means that Thor's probably going to get a major verbal ass-kicking sometime in the near future.

And you know, that's something Loki has to remind himself is okay in this household – _his_ household. Ever since Saturday and the too weird, too honest, too gooey heart-to-heart/conversation/jumble of words and feelings-fest that occurred between him and his brother, Loki's been having what's close to an identity crisis every time he and Thor interact, which is often when he's the primary breadwinner, cook, and rule-maker in the house and Thor is as hungry and as clueless as he's always been. He'll ask himself upon discovering a dirty sock in his bathtub or finding himself faced with the responsibility of doing the dishes for the bajillionth time, _Is it worth it to get angry over this?_. And the voice inside him – his logic or his conscience, maybe – will say, _Not angry – disappointed_. And Loki will wonder how to act disappointed without ripping Thor a new asshole and blowing the situation out of proportion like he would have before, and that usually leads to him questioning his state of being and his integral personality traits and the balance of the universe, and _that_ makes him realize even more how awful a person he truly is, and he _still_ can't make a decision regarding Thor without calling Frigga for advice. He lives a sad life.

All that confusion and indecisiveness doesn't apply to this situation, though, because Fenrir is to Loki what a five year-old son is to a very adoring mother, and can you imagine how pissed off a mother would be if her child's babysitter left him out in the dirt and the rain for what has to be the _third_ time since they were unofficially hired? If you need a little help, you can think of every mother with conviction that's ever graced the face of history, mothers like Demeter and Isis and Alexandra of Russia.

Yeah. It's _that_ serious.

Anyways, what happens next is so ridiculous and unlikely and _fast_ that Loki can't even believe it's transpired until he's screaming vulgarities at the top of his lungs and fighting the onslaught of tears that sting and threaten to fall from his eyes. Keep in mind that he's a naturally graceful human being and that he's been one for as long as he can remember as I describe him taking a step and a half across the rain-slick patio, legs tense and moving quicker than what's really safe in this weather, before friction suddenly decides to make itself scarce in his world and send his left foot flying forward and his right leg crumpling beneath him like a folding chair or a bendy straw, and _fucking __**youch**_ – _that's_ what you call pain, that viper of fire crawling down his calf and rendering him scarily weak in every joint in his body.

At first, it almost doesn't register to him that anything wrong has happened, and it's like he's stuck in a thriller movie in the way that everything freezes and goes all still and silent and _nothing_ around him, but life isn't too slow to catch up to him, and in seconds, Loki's being hit with the full, unrelenting force of the pain that's shooting up and down his calf and thigh, with the cripplingly humiliating realization that he's absolutely soaked and sitting in the middle of his patio with what's probably a broken leg, and he's _shrieking_, shrieking for Lord knows who and Lord knows what, shrieking, "_Oh my fucking God, oh my __**God**__, ohmy__**God**__ohmy__**God**__…!_"

As I'm sure you can all tell, he is _fucked_.

Loki's stuck like on the ground like that for about two minutes. Fenrir gallops over to him and proceeds to butt his dripping muzzle into his face and neck the moment he's turned into a banshee, but with the exception of the company of his husky, Loki's flying solo on his trip to the fiery, painful, stinging, painful, loathsome, and did I mention _painful? _depths of Hell. He tries lying down on the smooth, cool cement beneath him to alleviate his distress, but his struggle to straighten his right leg out only has his tears falling that much more easily and his cries escaping him more pitifully than they were before, if at all possible.

After Fenrir starts to rasp his tongue over his face and whimper his worry, Loki decides that maybe he should try to help himself – a skill he's been honing for the past fourteen years or so and _still _has yet to master – instead of catching something nasty like pneumonia and dying or letting his leg set improperly or inadvertently causing yet _another_ horrible thing to happen (which shouldn't be too hard, considering the fact that it's _him_).

First, he turns himself halfway onto his stomach and plants his hands flat against the pavement, spitting curses and blinking tears out of his eyes all the while. Then, he drags himself across the patio in the direction of the back door, which is halfway open and kind of like a portal to Heaven when he's pawing through what could easily pass as a swamp in the ninth circle of Hell. This, my friends, is one of the most physically excruciating things he's ever had the displeasure of enduring, and even though most of the pain and negativity running rampant inside him is something he's subconsciously amplifying (because if Loki is _anything_, he's a drama queen and a pessimist of the highest order), there's no doubt that his soul has been broken when he's halfway inside his kitchen and resting his head against the linoleum floor, sobbing more out of disgrace than anything else.

And honestly, what's worse than the fucking bonfire in Loki's knee are the thoughts that are brutally raping his state of mind, thoughts of how much _harder_ things are going to be for him in the immediate-to-near-ish future. Who's going to clean up the house when he has a broken leg? Who's going to take care of Fenrir (who pretty much _hates_ any human being with the exception of Loki, Tony, and Frigga, by the way) when he has a broken leg? Who's going to cook when he has a broken leg? How is he going to drive to class when he has a broken leg? How will he work when he has a broken leg? How is he going to do _anything_ but limp around on crutches for what could be over a _month_ when he _has a __**broken leg**__?_ These are the questions that are putting his teardrops on the floor right now.

Loki's about to take on the dreadful task of dragging the rest of his body into the kitchen when he hears footsteps like thunder trampling down the hallway and the voice of his brother calling his name, frantic and confused – "_Loki?_" – and he raises his head just in time to see Thor scramble into the kitchen, half-fucking-dressed, hair a grand mess, and sporting a hard-on.

Yes, dear reader, you _did_ read that correctly.

Loki is lying on the kitchen floor – leg broken, pride _obliterated_, and completely soaked from head-to-toe – and Thor is standing in the doorway with a fucking hard-on. A _hard-on_. If this isn't some sort of acid dream or a cruel joke his mind has played on him, Loki would very much like to _die_ right now, please and thank you.

"What happened?" Thor practically roars at him, rushing over to where he's sprawled across the linoleum. Loki tries to focus on giving his brother an answer as the man hovers over him, his clear blue eyes searching his face and spying out any visible injuries he might have, but he _cannot stop_ looking at the massive boner tenting the front of Thor's sweatpants and _oh my __**God**_, his face is probably redder than a goddamn beet and his mouth is hanging open in absolute mortification and his mind is kind of _exploding_ on itself right now and his knee is still a thing that exists and is screaming at him and this may very well be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to him, even more so than that time Tony tried to suck him off through his underwear and Thor decided to pull a Kool-Aid Man on them (minus the '_oh, yeaahhh!_', of course).

"I-I think I broke my leg," he eventually manages to whine in response, his voice higher than usual and straining in his pain, and as soon as the words '_my leg_' are leaving him, Sif is peeking into the doorway, clad in one of Thor's gargantuan football shirts and what appears to be nothing else, and it hits Loki like a fucking meteor that Thor left Fenrir outside because he was having sex with Sif, that Thor didn't greet him when he came home because he was having sex with Sif, that Thor didn't hear him when he first started wailing his pain because he was having sex with Sif, that Thor has an _erection_ because he was _**having sex with Sif**_. And this whole situation is suddenly _so_ much worse – not because _Sif_ is seeing him broken and wet and lower than an amoeba on the List of Organisms That Are Important and Have Presence in the World, but because Thor was _having sex with her_ while he was in a twenty mile radius of him.

"What were you doing?" Thor asks him, and when he puts his hands on Loki – oh _God_, when he puts his _hands that have been touching Sif in private fucking places __**on Loki**_ – Loki can't stop himself from breaking into the most hysterical fit of sobs and tears, can't stop himself from laying (more like _clunking_) his forehead against the floor and just _shrieking_ into it, because he's in nearly unbearable pain and did I mention that he's fucking _soaked?_ and he's freezing cold and Thor and Sif were _**having sex**_ _in his house_ and they're both half-naked and they're _staring_ at him and Fenrir is in desperate need of a bath and _really_ – this day cannot get any worse.

"Oh my God, Loki, calm down, _please_, calm down, oh my _God_," Thor starts rambling almost as soon as Loki starts howling like something out of a horror movie, and when Loki looks up at him, his cheeks dripping with tears and flushed with emotion and his features contorted into an expression as ugly as it is horrified, he gets this determined-yet-frightened look on his face and declares, like a general to disillusioned troops, "I'm going to fix this."

And it turns out that today actually _can _get worse, because it _does_ when Thor clumsily maneuvers Loki into his arms and lifts him off of the ground like he's nothing more than sopping ragdoll. Loki can't help but instinctively start to flail in his brother's grasp – an action that effectively puts him in even _more_ pain and has him choking on his tears and clinging to Thor like the man's his goddamn lifeline. Let's not forget that Thor doesn't have a shirt on and may or may not _still_ have a stiffy.

Once Loki's stopped writhing and has resigned himself to just resting his brow against Thor's hair-covered chin and crying softly, Thor turns to a wide-eyed and slack-jawed Sif, drawing a soft whimper and a hiss out of Loki when his leg swings around a little less than gently, and says, "Can you grab my keys and hold the door open?"

"Can you put some fucking clothes on and get my dog back outside?" Loki roughly interjects before anyone can move, and there's this godawfully uncomfortable moment after he's spoken where Thor and Sif just _stare_ at him as if he's turned blue and sprouted wings or something, because _oh!_ – he can speak words other than '_augh_' and '_fuck you_' when he's injured. He levels his stormy, damp green eyes at them when it becomes apparent that they're not going to do anything without him _shoving_ them to, sniffing wetly and adding in an unnecessarily bitchy tone, "Preferably _now_-ish?"

Always count on Loki to be encouraging.

After a million and a half years of awkwardness, Thor carries Loki into the living room and temporarily sets him down on the sofa so that he and Sif can make themselves decent (and possibly finish what Loki's accident interrupted). As soon as they've scurried out of sight, Loki grabs the wireless phone sitting on the end table beside the sofa and dials one of the only numbers he knows by heart with shaking fingers and a throat full of sobs and hiccups, pressing it to his ear as he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe slowly.

Tony picks up before the second ring is even over.

"Hello, turtledove," he's drawling into the mouthpiece the moment he's answered the phone, and because Loki's allergic to comfort and affection in a way that makes him tear up whenever it's given to him, he starts to cry harder and sniffle louder than he already is at the pet name. _Of course_, Tony's demeanor does a complete one-eighty once he hears him, and his voice is urgent and panicked when he asks, "Are you crying?"

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs the moisture out of his eyes, struggling with the knot of emotion in his throat for thirty seconds or so – just enough time to drive Tony insane with worry – before he concedes, "I'm pretty sure I broke my leg while Thor was having sex with Sif." He only realizes how shitty (ergo _fitting_) his explanation is after it's left him, but he doesn't have any time to amend or add to it, because Tony's on red alert and close to demolishing the whole _universe_ the instant he hears '_broke my leg_'.

"I'm coming to get you," Tony says almost immediately, soft, rustling sounds of movement following him over the line. "Don't move, baby, I'll be there in a hear–"

"Don't," Loki cuts him off with a loud, nasty-sounding sniff, running his fingers through his hair and staring at the ceiling as he tries – _still_ – to rid himself of the embarrassment and the terror that's making his limbs and lips quake and tremble. "Thor and Sif are getting dressed, and I think they're going to take me to the hospital when they're done."

There's a short stretch of silence, then, only broken when Tony asks, his tone spectacularly unimpressed and droll, "Were they _naked_ when they found you?"

And you know, it's moments and days like these during which Loki becomes certain that he's insane or at least _a lot_ off-kilter, because despite the fact that he's more than shaken up and crying like an infant and so terribly _horrified_ by the image Tony's put in his head, he starts grinning like a fool and _cackling_, delirious and frenzied, at the man's question, and he plasters his hand to his face and just _weeps_ and laughs and weeps and laughs until Tony's groaning, seemingly shocked, "They _were_, weren't they?"

"They were close to it," Loki replies once he's able to stop snickering as wildly as he is. He carefully shifts himself into a more comfortable position, hissing quietly when he disturbs his leg and sends arrows of pain shooting up his thigh, and there's just the slightest bit of strain in his words when he says, "Wait about thirty minutes before you come rushing to my bedside in the emergency room, okay? I have to actually get there and get checked out first."

"Do you really expect me to just _sit here_ and _worry_ about you for half an hour?" Tony asks. Loki can practically _hear_ the disapproving frown on the man's face, and for some reason, that makes him weak, makes him smile and close his eyes like he's pleasantly exhausted and not under both physical and emotional stress of the extraordinarily intolerable kind. Tony does that to him a lot.

"Yes, I do," he chuckles, rubbing the tip of his ring finger against his eyelid. "Promise me that you'll stay put and watch the clock, and that when it's time for you to come see me, you won't drive over the speed limit or rush into the ER like a bat out of hell."

Tony makes this disgruntled, the-things-I-do-for-love sort of noise in response, and after about twenty seconds (which is a long time, let me tell you) of that, he eventually gives Loki a noncommittal, grudging, "I'll try." Loki finds that by some miracle, he can accept _trying_ when he's got a broken leg and a wounded sense of pride. Yeah. _Trying_ is okay.

"I love you, Tony," he says, on the verge of murmuring but not quite there yet, just as Thor and Sif stumble into the room, dressed in clothes that are more wrinkled than Loki would honestly like to think about and _not_ poking out in places they shouldn't be. Thor stops abruptly as soon as he sees that Loki's on the phone, and Loki raises one long, elegant index finger at him, telling him to wait without words.

Tony gives this enormous whirlwind of a sigh, a laugh apparent in his voice when he replies, "I love you too, Loki. I'll come climb into your tower and sweep you off your feet in…" He pauses for a moment. "… twenty-nine minutes."

Loki smiles like the sun when it's a bit too shy to move completely out of the shadow of a cloud, says, "I'll be waiting."

One can only be this gay when they're in love.

Despite that wonderful piece-of-heaven of a phone call, every ounce of sweetness and light in Loki evaporates and gives way to irritation and the closest thing to hatred besides hatred itself when Thor hefts him into his arms again, and nothing but curses and insults and complaints of the nastiest and most petulant caliber leave him as the man carries him out the door and stuffs him into the backseat of his Hummer as carefully as he possibly can. Loki doesn't think he's ever going to forget the way Thor looks at him once he's situated and says, all sullen and puppy-eyed, "I'm sorry," or the way he answers the apology with a sharp, breathy, "Fuck you," or the way Thor laughs at him because he knows he's not entirely serious, or the way he struggles not to laugh himself after his brother's closed the door on him and circled around to the driver's seat.

* * *

After he's gotten through triage, been checked out by a nurse, and received an X-ray, it turns out that Loki _hasn't_ broken his leg, that he's simply sprained what the doctor tells him is his anterior cruciate ligament – the ligament connecting his knee to his femur, in English. The hospital staff gives him a gown to wear as a replacement for his sopping clothes, and in between visits from the nurses and the doctor, Thor calls Tony (much to his extraordinarily infuriating chagrin) and instructs (not _asks_, the asshole) him to bring something for Loki to wear, then Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and possibly every single person he can think of to blab about Loki's condition. But that doesn't bother Loki.

What _bothers_ Loki is the setting. What _bothers_ Loki is the unnatural, too-bright fluorescent lights that cast everything in a ghostly, clinical glow. What _bothers _Loki is the sterile smell of everything, the bleach-white sheets and the eyes of people in pain and the latex gloves and the unique chilliness that only an emergency room is capable of having, too many echoes and too much shine and glare everywhere, and you know what? Loki hasn't been able to go to a hospital without freaking out and breaking down bit by bit on the inside since the accident, because every time he hears a heart monitor, he's imagining it's the one connected to him, and every time he stares at the peculiar, nothing pattern on the ceiling, he can remember spending hours focusing on it and praying that he'd get lost in the tiny blue specks, and the light – Jesus Christ, the _light_ – the light has his vision swimming like it did the day he was rushed in here nearly four years ago, seventeen and battered half to death, and the light is terrifying and all-encompassing and blinding and constantly on him and a reminder of the mortality of human beings, especially the depressed and unhealthy ones, and the light makes him think of himself and the back of his eyelids and the things he dreams about sometimes, and even though he isn't _nearly_ as injured as he was after the accident, the light makes him feel like he is.

"You look lost," Thor tells him once he's gotten off of the phone with Steve (_Steve_), and Loki is almost too distracted to notice that the man is speaking to him, to notice that he's hovering at his side and nervously balling his hands in his pockets and watching him like one would a wounded animal they have virtually no ability to help.

Loki looks at Thor without really seeing him, eventually forcing himself to admit, almost as an excuse, "I don't like hospitals." He stares vacantly as Thor pulls one of the flimsy, cheap hospital chairs in the corner of the room up to his bedside and plops down into it, and because Sif retreated to the bathroom after Thor had informed Hogun of their location, Loki and his brother are alone.

Thor makes this uncomfortable sighing noise and props his elbows against his knees so that he can rest his chin in his hands, fixes Loki with eyes that are reminiscent of lonely Golden Retrievers and a raging sea that's been forced to calm. He seems like he's at a total loss for words and far from interested in saying anything until he's blurting, so oddly remorseful, "I'm sorry I forgot about Fenrir."

That stirs Loki to feel something outside of the murky haze of nostalgia and melancholy inside him, something akin to irritation and justification and self-righteousness and bitterness. His voice and gaze are sharper than they were before when he replies, "You should be. The only reason why I ran outside and did this to myself is because you left him in the backyard." He looks away, focuses on the shadows that flit beneath the curtain concealing his room. "You should know better."

"I _know_," Thor groans, and even though he sounds indignant and affronted, he's really just guilty, and Loki knows that. He knows it so much that he has to return his eyes to his brother and _see_ it, see the glumness and the sulkiness and the shame written all over his features, and even though Thor has made a mistake and is _definitely_ in the wrong here, Loki is rendered completely helpless as he watches his own heart thaw in response to his brother's expression, and he_ did _kind of swear that he wouldn't let him sink into the black hole of self-loathing he's constantly in himself. Plus, it's a bit difficult to stay mad at the man when he looks oh-so _sad_ for messing up.

But of course, he doesn't express any of that stupid, worthless affection beyond the minute softening of his voice when he says, "You're going to have to help me out a lot more than you have been now."

"I know," Thor echoes. He almost looks bashful when he smirks at Loki, boyish and teasing, and adds, "It'd be a lot easier for me if you didn't try to claw my face off every time I pick you up."

Loki allows himself a small laugh at that. "I'll try to keep that in mind the next time you're raring to take me to the hospital without any clothes on," he counters.

Ironically, it's at the exact moment that Thor pouts at Loki and argues, "I did _so_ have clothes on!", that a nurse decides to pop into the room, and Thor and Loki are stuck staring at her throughout the five-second lifespan of the awkwardness that has swooped in and perched on their heads like hungry pigeons plucking for crumbs of discomfort and forced association, and Thor looks like he might start to explain his outburst when the nurse holds up a thick roll of elastic and says, "I'm gonna have to bandage your knee, Mr. Skywalker."

Loki just nods silently and disregards Thor's disgruntled huffing beside him, counting himself saved from an unnecessary argument with his brother – his _brother_ – about what constitutes as naked (and for the record, if it's possible to see your genitalia, Loki considers you to be _more_ than indecent). That gratitude doesn't last very long, though, because within less than two minutes, he's hissing in pain and clutching at Thor's arm like he only would when they were children, when Thor was only a boy and only his _older brother_ – not his _older brother?_ – when Thor was someone he trusted completely to shoulder him through any agony he might find himself in and reassure him with his stupid smiles and awful jokes, but _honestly_, that younger, brighter Thor might as well be the Thor Loki's clinging to now when he's got a nurse binding his sprain as tightly as she possibly can without _killing_ him with a fucking ACE bandage.

And, because today is seriously striving to be one of the most embarrassing Loki will ever experience in his life, Tony arrives in the middle of this painful ideal, finds him nearly spitting in his anguish and holding onto Thor like the man's a lifeboat and he's stranded in the middle of the ocean. Loki locks eyes with his boyfriend just as he's biting back a rather nasty expletive (more for the sake of the nurse than anyone else, because _really_, he doesn't give a rat's ass whether or not Thor or Tony hear him curse like a sailor), and this impossibly uncomfortable expression washes over Tony's face the instant he's inside the room, a bundle of clothes in his arms and a pair of sunglasses atop his head.

"H-hey, you," Loki manages to stutter as the nurse fastens his bandage (which feels like it might just cut off the circulation in the lower half of his leg, thank you very much), willing himself to loosen his grip on Thor the slightest bit.

"Hey," Tony replies, unusually quiet and subdued, after he's taken a moment to survey the state Loki's in, and before he can say much more, the nurse is doing her job and informing Loki (and Thor, by extension) on how he should treat his injury for the next two and a half weeks. That's two and a half weeks of not being able to cook, clean, or drive at full capacity without any sort of assistance, and Loki's kind of dreading having to go through them.

"So we can go home now?" Thor asks once the nurse has ended her mini-seminar. The way the man says '_we_' and '_home_' tugs at Loki's heartstrings in way that isn't entirely visible, save for the lowering of his eyes and the infinitesimal, semi-subconscious squeeze he gives Thor's bicep (which he _still_ hasn't let go of).

"You're free to go," the nurse returns, scooting past Tony and out of the room only a second later. Her exit turns out to be just as awkward as her entrance was, because now, Loki's alone with the two magnetic poles in his life, the two people he cares about the very most, two people who couldn't be more different nor more alike, two people who pretty much _despise_ each other – and only because they love him.

(And you know, sometimes Loki creeps himself out when he ponders the plethora of similarities Thor and Tony have, because then he starts to think that he probably likes Tony so much because he reminds him of Thor, and _then_ he starts to think that he's quite possibly in love with his brother, but when he remembers who he is and that Tony is actually very different from Thor and that isolated personality traits have nothing to do with a person as a whole and _oh my God_, why would he even _begin_ to think something like that?, he realizes that he's just crazy and should stop thinking half as much as he does.)

"I need to get dressed," Loki eventually says to break the uncomfortable silence that's fallen over the room. He tells himself to release Thor's arm when it occurs to him how odd it is that he's held onto it for so long and, more importantly, that Tony might get irrationally jealous if he doesn't.

"I'll help," both Thor and Tony pipe at the same time, effortlessly managing to make everything awkward again. It takes every bit of self-control Loki has to not burst with laughter at the _look_ the two of them share after that awful-wonderful coincidence, a look that's anxious and sheepish and fringed with the tiniest bit of resentment.

"I have clothes for him," Tony announces like saying so will actually mean something to Thor, holding up the bundle he has for emphasis.

"I brought him here," Thor argues. He moves away from where Loki had him trapped so close to his side and crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt to be physically intimidating, and Loki has to force himself not to laugh again, knowing that Thor's size and strength does _nothing_ to deter Tony when his very _being_ is a beautifully dangerous combination of determination, rebellion, and self-destruction.

"Well, _great_, you did something _useful_ for once," Tony counters without missing a beat. Loki catches a glimpse of the anger that flashes across Thor's face at that comment and is immediately aware of how fast the window of time he has to fix this situation before it ends in blood is closing – _especially_ after Tony adds, "Maybe next time he sprains his knee you can try to not get it on with your girlfriend."

"Stop it," Loki interjects, scowling when both Thor and Tony look at him like he's that totally lame mom that won't let her children have any fun (if fighting like dogs is considered to be some sort of _fun_, that is). "I can't have you two arguing like this when I need both of you to help me."

"_Both_ of us?" Thor asks incredulously, his voice raising an octave and his expression growing even more outraged than it already is, and _oh God_, if Loki could pop him on the back of his head without having his hospital visit prolonged, he would without a second thought.

"_Yes_, both of you," Loki replies in a tone that leaves no room for debate, fixing Thor and Tony with his sharp jade eyes. "I don't expect you to clean up around the house and take care of dinner and tend to Fenrir and go grocery shopping and drive me to class and make sure I'm alive and breathing all by yourself, Thor." He clasps his legs beneath his right thigh, his gaze lowering along with his volume as he says, "You're not responsible enough."

_Ouch?_

There's a lengthy moment of silence after Loki's spoken, then – "Are you saying that _he_ is?", and when Loki looks up, he finds Thor pointing at Tony and Tony looking spectacularly displeased, and he's instantly horrified at the predicament he's in, horrified that today has sucked as much as it has and horrified that he's torn between his brother and his boyfriend and horrified that he actually has to answer this godawful, shoot-himself-in-the-foot sort of question that makes him want nothing more than to fling himself off the edge of a cliff and into an ocean of beautiful blue death, but it's not like he has _nearly_ enough time as he wants to ponder the incredible weariness that's made his chest its home, because Thor is waiting for an answer and Tony probably is, too, even if he doesn't look like it.

"I'm _saying_ that I need more help than you alone can give me," Loki hedges, his usually irascible and avoidant self. He's practically glaring at Thor when he adds, "Don't assume that I'm making a comparison when you have no reason to."

(FYI: Thor _does_ have a reason to – one that I'm sure is pretty clear when Loki _himself_ has a plethora of them to go around – but Loki can't have his brother discovering his ulterior motives and outsmarting him and generally being a pain in the ass, now can he?)

Before anyone can say anything to contradict him, Loki throws a hand out towards Tony and orders him to, "Help me to the bathroom, will you?"

Tony doesn't have to be told twice, and in seconds, he's balancing the clothes he's brought over his shoulder, slipping his arms beneath Loki's thighs and around his back, and lifting him off the bed and into his embrace, and even though it's altogether too much like a bride-groom setup and Loki would much rather limp – to get a feel for how he'll be faring for the next three weeks more than because he's a masochist who has a knack for getting others to pity him because he's in pain and then refuse their assistance due to a supposedly inflated ego, _gasp_ – he doesn't have it in him to complain when he can _smell_ Tony, smell that familiar, ridiculously arousing combination of Axe, motor oil, and tobacco, and it's simply too easy for him to relax in his boyfriend's hold and fasten his arms around his neck without a word of protest – that is, until he sees the look of utter betrayal on Thor's face.

And suddenly, Loki's having one of those moments he so often experiences in his mind, a moment of clarity and realization and self-hatred so bitter it keeps him awake for hours at night. He's realizing how two-faced he must look (how two-faced he _is_) to Thor by being nothing but antagonistic when he's in his arms and tantamount to a blushing schoolgirl in Tony's, by acting like receiving Thor's help is worse than _dying_ while getting Tony's is so much more preferred that he'd actually _reach _forit. He's realizing that he's not the only person that has the ability to be envious, that Thor is probably _just_ as jealous, if not more so, of Tony as Loki is of Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Steve, Clint, Emma –

Okay, forget the _more so_. Thor is jealous. He might not be the green-eyed monster Loki is (Oh, _look! _I made a joke!), but he's jealous. And he's the kicked-puppy kind of hurt that is the absolute _worst_ to behold. And this is something that Loki's going to have to deal with and/or address sometime soon while simultaneously making it clear to Tony that he's still one-hundred and ten percent loyal to him if he wants to have a somewhat peaceful recovery. And he's once again the not-so-proud recipient of the Asshole of the Year Award. _Wonderful_.

Loki doesn't give Thor much more than a sympathetic, near-apologetic (as close to apologetic as _he_ can get) glance, though, because despite how beneficial to the _world_ it would be for them to hash all this out as soon as possible, he _really_ wants to get dressed and Tony's already carrying him to the bathroom and _oh yeah_, he's going to be alone with his boyfriend for a few minutes, and that's actually pretty damn _awesome_.

(Plus, he's _still_ a bastard. Let's not forget that.)

Once Tony's kicked the bathroom door closed and sat Loki down on the uncomfortably sterile toilet (and for a second, I want all of you to focus on how weird and totally unsexy the word '_toilet_'is), the man is kissing him hard on the lips, pushing him against the back of his seat and instantly making apparent three things – _one_, that he's missed Loki since the last time he saw him, which was quite honestly only two days ago; _two_, that he _wants_ Loki (a desire that's entirely mutual, by the way); and _three_, that he's some degree of _pissed off_, and I say this because Tony only kisses like he's bullying you when he's angry about something, and Loki _knows_ that, and that's why he's letting Tony suck the breath out of him and press his thumbs into the soft, faintly depressed area beneath his ribs, letting him handle him as roughly as he wants to until his knee starts to suffer and gravity threatens to send the bundle of clothes on Tony's shoulder falling to the floor. That's when he pushes Tony away from him, their lips pulling apart with a wet, sucking noise and the air between them rapidly cooling now that there's nothing occupying it. Tony looks confused.

"You were being really rude back there," is what Loki decides to break the ice with, his tone breathless and terse. He doesn't feel the slightest bit remorseful when Tony's perplexed expression morphs into something irritated and just a little wounded in response.

"What did you _expect_ me to be?" the man retorts, squatting between Loki's legs and dropping a possessive hand on his uninjured knee. "Thor was supposed to take care of you and he let you nearly break your leg. _Of course_ I was rude."

"First of all, _no one_ is obligated to take care of me," Loki argues, sitting up straight and looking directly at Tony with the hint of a grimace playing on his lips. "I can take care of myself."

Tony raises an eyebrow, nods to Loki's sprain, and snorts, "I can see that." Loki nearly slaps him for that.

"_Second of all_," he goes on, opting to ignore Tony's remark, "Thor was already…" He pauses at the memory, his lips puckering for a half-second. "… with Sif by the time I got home, and it was raining pretty hard outside when I fell, so even _if_ he wasn't doing what he was doing, it would have been difficult for him to hear me screaming."

"But _still_," Tony persists, his voice turning into a low, almost desperate whine. He moves his hand up to bracket Loki's hip, to pinch the fabric there, and says, "If _I _was there, I wouldn't have let any of this happen at all."

"I don't think you could have stopped it, love, even if you wanted to," Loki replies with a slightly affectionate, vaguely exasperated sigh. "And you _aren't_ Thor. It's not your responsibility to be him, nor is it to protect me."

Tony grumbles quietly, much like he did on the phone earlier, scooting closer to Loki, wrapping his arms around his middle, and pulling him forward so that he can rest his head against his stomach. "I _want_ to protect you, though," he murmurs, his nose poking into Loki's abdomen and his words halfway lost in his hospital gown. "You get in enough trouble as it is."

Loki frowns a bit, bringing a hand up to slip his fingers into Tony's hair and worrying the inside of his mouth. Everything about this – Tony's position and how softly he's speaking and that they're in a bathroom and their environment is tinged with sickness – it all reminds him of when Tony was in withdrawal, and that makes his stomach turn with anxiety and his heart clench with fear despite the fact that he _knows_ Tony's life isn't on the line at this very moment, that he's pretty damn certain there isn't anything seriously going wrong with the man right now. He doesn't air his thoughts, however, choosing instead to respond to Tony's comment with, "I _am_ a magnet for misfortune. You know that."

"I know," Tony exhales, defeated. He tightens his hold on Loki, but he doesn't say anything more – a bad sign when he's probably the most loquacious, wordy person on the face of the Earth.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" Loki asks, his minute frown turning into full-blown scowl in his worry. Tony raises his head to look at him with his stupidly round, stupidly adorable eyes as he moves his fingers to the nape of the man's neck and rubs them in the dip there, watching how Tony's eyes lid just a bit and his lips part to let out a tiny sigh of pleasure at his ministrations. The sight of that is almost enough to dispel every negative working its way through his bloodstream, if only because he's calmed his boyfriend in some small way.

"I'm just pissed off that you're hurt," Tony says, thumbs brushing absently against Loki's sides. "And that I'm not allowed to protect you anymore, or whatever."

"Tony, you're _allowed_ to protect me," Loki practically growls, suddenly all worked up and belligerent once more. "I just don't want you to feel like you _need_ to, and especially not from my own brother."

"Too late," is Tony's bitter, laughing reply, uttered as the man stretches upwards to feather his lips against Loki's chin. "I'm always gonna feel that way about you."

Those last two words do dangerous things to Loki's heartbeat, things that have him reminding himself that his life is in fact _not_ a Hallmark movie and that he doesn't deserve one ounce of the devotion Tony bestows upon him, no matter how much the man insists otherwise. Allow him to be an ass and slowly shut the softer parts of himself down for about an hour or so, because _honestly_, even though he's definitely come to terms with his feelings for Tony, he's _still_ not entirely comfortable with being the gunk-on-the-inside-of-a-jelly-donut sort of gooey that his boyfriend makes him subconsciously want to be. (_**And**_ he's a bitch.)

"You're ridiculous, Tony," Loki huffs, giving said man a proper kiss on the lips as he starts to pull at the strings of his gown. This look of absolute adoration and lust comes over Tony as soon as Loki's peeled the flimsy fabric off of his lean frame, but Loki doesn't address it with much more than a playful smirk, a brief nuzzle to the nose, and another quick, insubstantial peck of a kiss.

"I love you a whole fucking lot, you tease," Tony chuckles, watching as Loki snatches the clothes he brought off of his shoulder and takes a few seconds to examine them.

"_D'aw_, I love you, too," Loki replies, only a bit histrionic (as per usual). He slips his arms into the sleeves of the Def Leppard t-shirt Tony's chosen for him, and once the article's on him, he doesn't stop himself from grasping the hem of the top and pressing it to his nose to inhale the extraordinarily Tony-esque scent of it. He feels like he's won something grand when he sees the way this impossibly pleased grin blooms across Tony's face in response to his somewhat childish action.

"You're perfect," Tony nearly _purrs_, moving to kiss his way up Loki's jaw and suck at the spot below his ear just like he's learned to do when he wants to drive the man crazy.

"I know, love," Loki breathes, tone dripping with sarcasm and thinly-concealed desire. He gives Tony's chest a halfhearted little push, gym shorts fisted in his hand, and says, "Help me get these on."

Tony flashes Loki a grin lascivious enough to make him forget everything he's ever been taught concerning public decency and sexual morals, and _dear __**God**_, he's actually thinking about _having sex_ with Tony in a _hospital bathroom_, and everything in the world is suddenly revolving around his boyfriend's dark, wanting eyes and the hand he has wrapped around his hip, and they've only been dating for less than a _week_ but it's all they can do to not lock themselves up in either one of their bedrooms and not come out until at least three sunrises later nowadays, and _oh __**shit**_ – that's right, he has a sprained knee and it fucking _hurts_ when someone's trying to pull clothing over it, and _yes_, that would be him gasping curses, now.

"_Fuck_, Tony…!" he hisses, his hand flying up to grasp at the counter beside the toilet and _squeeze_. Tony's watching him carefully even as he tugs the waistband of his shorts over his hips, and after Loki's fully clothed and panting with exertion, the man pulls him into his embrace again and peppers kisses along the crest of his cheek as if he's on the verge of slipping away from him like character X does in that too-familiar scene from every single fantasy/sci-fi/romance movie you've ever seen in your life, and he's murmuring, "I'm sorry," against his temple like he's actually done something wrong, and _dammit_ – that's just _heartbreaking_, _**especially**_ when it's second nature for Tony to assume such things about himself.

(Needless to say, all that sexual tension from earlier is _gone_, don't you think?)

Loki responds to Tony's affection with affection in turn, winds his arms around his neck and presses his mouth against the hard line of his jaw and says, more like it's an imperative than a question, "You're staying with me for the next two weeks, okay?"

Tony leans back an inch or two to give him a slightly imploring gaze, to ask, "What about Thor?"

Loki shakes his head before Tony can even get all three words out, moving his hands to frame the man's face and touching their noses together as he replies, "Let _me_ worry about that. Just try to behave, okay?"

"Me? _Behave?_" Tony chuckles. His words trail off into a pleased hum when Loki catches his lips in a firm, bittersweet kiss, and even though he hasn't said _yes_ or agreed to act like a civil human being, Loki has a feeling that the man will at least make an attempt at decorum.

* * *

The rest of that first day – the first of what, _eighteen?_ – is just as hectic as you'd expect it to be. Loki rides home with Tony and Thor and Sif grumble and curse along behind him (that's what he imagines them doing, anyway), and as soon as they're all lodged in his living room (which seems a lot smaller now that it's full of people that have varying degrees of hate for one another), it's like everybody in the whole _world_ has lost the ability to decide what it is they should do next and eye contact is something that's impossible to make. Let's take a moment to call roll, shall we?

There's Tony, who is honestly the most composed/casual/not-totally-flipping-a-minor-shit person in the room right now. He's doing a spectacular job of not looking at anyone but Loki and making sure said man is as comfortable as he can possibly be, sprawled on his sofa and with a super-shiny, brand new injury. A-plus for Mr. Stark's good behavior.

There's Sif, who easily looks more anxious than anyone else and is failing to not stare at Tony like he's emerged from the depths of her strangest and scariest dreams, which is understandable when you consider the fact that the last time she saw him, he was missing a shirt and had his head between Loki's thighs. She's standing about a foot from the front door, arms folded over her chest and a hand clasped to her mouth as if she might say something unsavory if she doesn't physically prevent herself from doing so. Let's give her a B.

There's Thor, who is just as huge and blond and pissy as he was at the hospital. He keeps casting these semi-inconspicuous, not exactly accidental, altogether _too_ victimized glances in a direction that could pass for Loki's but really isn't if you're paying close attention, and you can clearly see the disdain for everything that's ever existed written all over his face – something that's scarily and unsettlingly similar to the expression that's plastered across Loki's features ninety-nine percent of the time (that extra one percent accounts for occasions when Loki is with Tony or Frigga or – very rarely – _absolutely no one!_). Thor gets a C-minus.

Then there's Loki, who – as the most incapacitated as well as the most mature individual in the room – is obligated to take control of this clusterfuck of a situation, and honestly, as wonderful as that should sound to a person who has gone most of his life having the very _opposite_ of control over anything and everything, Loki is kind of _terrified_ at the thought of having to direct anyone but Tony, he has no idea how to be any kind of authoritative without also being bitchy and/or confrontational, and today is _seriously_ a shit day. _Radical_.

"Well, then. I suppose now's a good a time as ever for you guys to get to work," Loki breaks the awkward silence with, somehow managing to make himself look dominant by simply sitting up straight and crossing his arms. Everybody _definitely_ looks at him then, and _whoa_, that'd be a lot more mortifying if he wasn't letting out a consistent, even stream of words at the exact moment those six eyes landed on him.

"Sif doesn't have to do anything, does she?" Thor asks a bit gruffly, a hint of worry fringing his words. Sif's eyes, hard and somewhat unreadable for the most part, flick between Thor and Loki after her boyfriend's (this is a term that's _still_ under debate, really) voiced that question, and Loki can't tell if she's hopeful or embarrassed or both.

That doesn't really matter, though, because despite what _anyone_ wants, Loki's answer is pretty much set in stone. "If she doesn't help, she can leave," he replies without a moment's hesitation, and when Thor, Sif, and Tony's demeanors all melt into unusual combinations of fear, surprise, and something like submission, Loki quickly realizes that he has absolutely no reason to be afraid of taking on a position of authority – not when he gets reactions as _beautiful_ as those, and only by being _honest_.

"I'll help," Sif offers almost offhandedly, finally tearing her hand away from her mouth and standing up just a bit straighter. Thor looks at her like she's just lost her mind or sold her soul to the Devil, and that's kind of hilarious and sad, seeing as _Loki_ is the one she just offered herself to.

Loki carefully chooses to ignore that ugly little implication (that probably exists more in his head than anywhere else, honestly), and he gives Sif this smile that's spectacularly both grateful and aloof (such things are only possible when you're an asshole, let me tell you) and says, "I appreciate it."

Sif's attitude takes on an oddly appeased air as Tony asks, seemingly impatient, "What do you need us to do?"

Loki doesn't have to be questioned twice.

"First of all, someone needs to help me bathe Fenrir," he starts, his eyes automatically finding Thor's without him consciously meaning them to. "Someone else needs to mop the kitchen floor, and one of you needs to somehow make dinner happen." Loki pauses to catch his breath. "I'm also going to need help going to bed later tonight and waking up and getting to class tomorrow morning, not to mention going places in general for the next two weeks–"

"Can we make a chore chart and put it up on the fridge or something?" Thor cuts in, and while Loki's first instinct is to get angry at his brother for interrupting him, the man's idea strikes him as an extraordinarily good one when he remembers exactly _who_ he has aiding him.

"If that makes you feel better, sure," he returns. Thor's previously severe expression softens a bit, thank _God_.

"I can help you give Fenrir a bath," Tony offers, immediately and unintentionally succeeding at stressing Loki out again for reasons that will become apparent in just a second.

"I was actually hoping Thor could do that," Loki concedes this side of awkwardly, watching as his brother and boyfriend exchange the most irritated glance in the history of the _universe_ for the _gazillionth_ fucking time today. He's practically throwing himself under a bus when he adds, "Because he left him outside, and all that."

Thor gives Loki a glare of epic and hilarious proportions as Tony half-sighs, "I guess I'll take care of dinner, then. It'll give me a chance to grab some stuff from my house." He raises a hand to adjust his sunglasses and scratch at his temple (that damn telltale habit of his), asks, "Is there anything in particular you want?"

Loki smiles a bit despite himself (because good _Lord_, is it wonderful to have an opinion that matters once every few hundred years), replies, "Maybe Italian?"

He knows he's only being coy and cutesy because Tony's looking at him like he's the world. He also knows that Thor (and possibly Sif) would probably much rather be anywhere but _here_, watching him and Tony casually flirt with one another like high school students. He _also_ knows that his give-a-fuck is definitely broken at the moment, and all because Tony Stark has the ability to be the biggest fucking _sweetheart_ when they're together.

"Can do," Tony pipes with the faintest of grins, moving to drop a quick kiss on Loki's temple before he scoots on past Sif and out the door like the avenging angel he is. What a hero.

"I'll, uhm, go clean the kitchen," Sif interjects once Tony's out of sight, like a divine blessing in the way she saves things from becoming uncomfortable _yet again_.

"And I'll go get Fenrir," Thor puts in immediately after Sif's spoken, and it's almost painfully obvious how eager he is to get moving (and who could blame him after the clusterfuck that is/was today?). He and Sif are halfway to blowing the house down (or something else similarly dramatic) when Loki speaks up again, voice the slightest bit louder than usual and just as authoritative as it was prior to when Tony turned him into a pile of goop.

"Get me into the bathroom first," he orders, the words coming out of him in a rush in his haste to catch Thor and Sif before they're totally out of earshot. Loki has to force himself not to start cackling like a witch when the two of them nearly trip over themselves as well as each other trying to change directions.

"Yeah, good idea," Thor mumbles half to himself as he shuffles over to the sofa, arms outstretched and ready to make Loki airborne once more. Loki makes sure not to act like _too_ much of an ass once he's up in the air (a feat that can only be considered _phenomenal_ when you consider things like his dreadful personality and the fact that he's still far from being okay with his brother taking care of him after he's spent an eternity neglecting to do so).

"The mop's in the laundry room!" Loki calls to Sif, almost as an afterthought, on his way down the hallway, tantamount to a helpless ragdoll in his brother's hold. He doesn't have time to see if he's heard him.

Five minutes later and Loki is perched on the toilet (his favorite place to be today, it seems) like some pampered fairy tale prince and Thor, covered in mud and obviously disgruntled, is following his instructions on how to wash the dog-tired (no pun intended) husky in the bathtub beside him. No words are exchanged between them save for Loki's occasional directive – '_You have to _splash_ the water on him, Thor._', '_Start from the top and work down._', '_Don't get shampoo in his eyes – use a towel for his face._' – and it isn't until Thor is carefully rinsing Fenrir's pelt that Loki utters something that isn't an imperative.

"You're quiet, brother," he notes, only pinning that pronoun to the end of his sentence because he knows what it'll do to Thor, and that's _open him up_ and _get him talking_ (and who would've thought that this is something Loki'd ever _strive_ for?).

"I'm bathing your dog," Thor returns in an unusually even tone, not moving to meet Loki's eyes like Loki expected him to.

And suddenly, they're children again, and Loki wants Thor's attention so much it's _killing _him inside, except he's much too proud to pull for it as straightforwardly as he probably should, and Thor is just rebuffing him so fucking _casually_, and that's really damn _hurtful_, and Loki's small and trivial and customarily in the wrong like he always is, and he's the true definition of what it is to be a little brother and the youngest in a family, and that makes him start to feel just a little argumentative, and self-control is great and all that but impulsive behavior is so much easier to engage in when you're emotionally wounded, and _fuck _equality and trying not to be an absolute douchebag for no good reason – Loki has an _excuse_ to be a bitch, and he'll be _damned_ if he doesn't use it.

"I thought we talked about how you're to act around Tony," Loki says, abrupt and without pretense and totally uncalled for, because he's never learned how to gain what he wants by being anything but underhanded and malicious, because underhanded and malicious are the only way he's going to get Thor to pay him any mind, and because _hey_ – Thor _did_ fuck up, and it's _so_ refreshing to point out his brother's mistakes when he's spent his whole childhood watching as they were brushed off as simple accidents while every error _he's_ ever made has been equivalent to the Book of Revelations in its awful awfulness.

"Well, it's kind of hard to be A-okay with watching you turn into a princess around him," Thor growls back. He _still _isn't looking at Loki, and _really_, I wouldn't be lying if I said that Loki is ready to chuck something at his brother's fucking head because of it.

"A _princess?_" Loki snaps – ah, _yes_, there are Thor's clear, glowering blue eyes coming to regard him – "The last time I checked, Tony was my _boyfriend_ and I was allowed to act however the hell I wanted to around him."

"The last time _I _checked, I was your _brother_," Thor retorts, turning completely away from Fenrir to look at Loki directly. "Why is it so wrong for me to try and help you, but as soon as _Tony's_ around, it's like he's God's gift to you?"

Three things about what just came out of Thor's mouth:

1. Thor made a pretty bad decision by saying _God_ and using the term '_God's gift_', because no matter how loosely Loki throws around the statements '_Oh my God_' and '_I swear to God_', always remember the fact that those words are in vain and that any advice/plea/idea with religious connotations that gets thrown his way is automatically invalid to him. Of course, Thor isn't aware of Loki's lack of belief, but that doesn't change the fact that his mention of _God_ gets under Loki's skin.

2. Thor is making the assumption that Loki's totally fucking _fine_ with Tony helping him – one that isn't true, as evidenced by the mini-argument the two of them had at the hospital, and one that's a crock of shit when you think about how prideful Loki actually is, never mind the fact that Tony's _everything _has the awesome and horrifying ability to tear into him and leave him cripplingly vulnerable. This brings me to my third point:

3. After over two months of living with Loki and sort of-kind of learning about who he is and what his life has been like since the accident drove a wedge wider than the Grand Canyon between them, Thor is _still_ being impossibly ignorant about the nature of Loki and Tony's relationship. Now, you can honestly say that this is understandable when Loki used to go to great lengths to keep Thor and Tony from ever confronting one another (for reasons that are obvious in light of what happened on Tony's birthday and what's going on at this very moment) and when Loki isn't exactly the most open person, but when people like _Steve Rogers_ – who isn't even _involved _in any of this – know that Loki has Tony wrapped around his little finger and vice-versa, when Tony knows things about Loki that Thor couldn't even _dream_ to be aware of, when the only person outside of their family that Loki mentions in casual conversation is _that's right_, _**Tony Stark**_, you'd think that Thor would get the hint that _oh_, he _isn't_ the morning and the evening star in the sky that is Loki's life anymore – that's _Tony_. Anyways.

"Please stop throwing that word around like it means something," Loki blurts. It's only when that stab has escaped him that he realizes how dreadful and hypocritical it is, but he can't even _begin _to take it back, and Thor's giving him this terribly confused, terribly _hurt_ look, and oh _yeah_, he's a monster. There's no denying it now – he is truly demonic.

"What word?" Thor asks, the tail ends of irritation and the very beginnings of actual rage fringing his question. "'_Brother_'? You think that doesn't _mean _anything?"

At first, Loki just blanks out. He doesn't have a clue how he's going to respond to a question so _baring_, so _confrontational_, so _deep_, and that oh-so familiar sensation called shame is turning the inside of his ribcage uncomfortably warm, and he's pretty sure his expression is horribly conflicted and the perfect picture of a deer in headlights, and _damn_, today's the day Thor's going to get fed up with his bullshit and leave him again, and he's gone too far and it's too late to fix things, and he and Thor aren't _ever_ going to be like they were before the accident and it's _all his __**fault**_ –

But then a thought hits him. A long thought. An intricate thought. An _honest_ thought. And Loki doesn't think he's ever found words as perfect as the ones he's just formulated in his head to describe something as complicated and interesting as he and Thor, and they couldn't have come at a more opportune time, and _yes_ – he _needs _Thor to understand him. If they're ever going to put a halt to this nonstop arguing, he _**needs**_ Thor to _understand_ him.

Loki closes his eyes for a moment, trying to ground himself so that he can say what he needs to without totally flipping out or something (and knowing him, he _will_ if he doesn't at least _attempt_ to reach some sort of forced Zen). When he looks at Thor again, the man is _still_ glaring daggers at him, and it's nothing short of a _miracle_ that he can make words come out of him, that he can say, slowly and carefully, "I'm going to explain something to you, and I want you to _listen_ to me and try and understand what I'm saying, okay?"

"Stop acting like I'm stupid!" Thor thunders, ever the king of assumptions and suddenly three times as pissed off as he was only seconds earlier. Loki can't help but jump in surprise at his brother's sudden outburst, can't help but gasp a bit when Thor slams his hand against the inside of the bathtub, sending drops of water flying, and growls, "You always talk to me like I'm some kind of fucking idiot and like you're so much smarter than me!"

Loki squeezes his eyes shut again like a turtle retreating into its shell or a hedgehog curling into a ball, inhaling a deep, shuddering breath and telling himself that Thor is just being loud to intimidate him (like he _always_ has) before he's looking into the man's face and saying, "I'm not insinuating that you're not intelligent, _Thor_. I'm trying to get you to calm down and listen to what I'm telling you, because I _knew_ you'd get angry, and when you're angry, _you don't __**hear**__ anything_."

"You do the same thing, Loki!" Thor argues, his face smeared with indignation and distress. "It doesn't matter _what_ I say – you _always_ get upset for some reason, and then you shut me out!"

That's when Loki realizes – for the first time in his life – that he and Thor are actually the same person. You know how people say that Venus and Earth are twin planets – extraordinarily similar in the most basic and fundamental of ways and yet terribly different on the surface? That's how Loki is seeing himself and his brother at the moment, and it's kind of scaring the fuck out of him.

He doesn't have much time to dwell on that controversial and potentially life-changing epiphany for very long, though, because here comes impatience and aggravation and self-loathing plowing through his bloodstream and pushing words between his lips, forcing him to practically _scream_, "_Yes_, I do the same thing! That's all the more reason for you to act differently!" Loki's mouth is left hanging open even after he's punctuated that exclamation, as he catches his breath just enough to add, "I'm a _monster_. You don't want to be like me."

The look on Thor's face is nothing short of stunned – a reaction that makes perfect sense when you think about the fact that the man has gone most of his life being unaware or simply ignorant of his brother's eternal hatred of himself, hatred that Loki's had and nurtured since he was old enough to put together that the reason why everybody treated him like shit was probably his dreadful personality. Of course, if that's the case, Thor has most likely believed that his brother is a misanthropic, arrogant, vindictive _asshole_ for the longest, and while Loki certainly _is_ all that (with the possible exception of _arrogant_, which we can easily correct to be _selfish_ or _narcissistic_ – words that mean _very _different things when you define them honestly), the fact that he despises his own _existence_ changes (as well as explains) a whole fucking lot. Thor is going to spend the next few months realizing and processing all of this, but for now, that leviathan of a concept is but a seed of doubt planting itself in his head, asking him if he truly knows the person who's been a cornerstone in his life since the day he was born, fuzzy-headed and chameleon-eyed.

(Hint: He doesn't.)

Fenrir starts to whimper quietly when Loki decides to break the silence Thor is failing to fill in his shock, when Loki says, his voice even but cracking, "'_Brother_' does mean something, Thor. It does. But not what you keep _saying_ it does."

Thor winces a bit, visibly deflating. There are flares of emotion in his eyes, but his mouth is sealed firmly shut – an invitation for Loki to keep going.

"We've known each other for our entire lives," Loki continues, carefully following his own train of thought. "We grew up together. We've laughed together and we've cried together. We've seen each other at our best and our worst, and you know _me_ better than most other people do, and I know _you_ better than most other people do, too. Once upon a time we were best friends, but we've also been the worst of enemies." He swallows thickly, inhales a shallow breath and looks Thor straight in the face. "_That's_ what '_brother_' means. '_Brother_' means that nothing's ever going to erase or invalidate anything we've ever been through together, and I say that with both the good and the bad we've endured in mind. _**That's**_ what '_brother_' means."

Thor's expression gradually softens into something like weary acceptance and grateful nostalgia throughout the entirety of Loki's seminar, and by the time Loki has paused, he actually seems somewhat pleased with what came out of the man's mouth. All that satisfaction is dashed away almost hilariously fast when Loki speaks again, though.

"'_Brother_' doesn't mean I trust you," he says, plain and almost bitterly honest. Loki lets a few lengthy moments of wordlessness follow that bombshell, lets his words sink in and turn Thor's face into a mask of surprise and hurt once more. Can I get an _ouch?_

"That's what _trust_ means, and you'd think that's why it's called _trust_ and not _brotherhood_ or _family_ or whatever the hell else you want to equate it to," Loki picks up right where he left off with, not one beat missed. He angles his head towards Thor as he asks, voice an octave higher, "You want to talk about me _trusting_ you? Start by accomplishing the simple task of bringing _my fucking __**dog**_ back in the house when it's raining so I don't break my _goddamn_ leg trying to go get him.

"'_Brother_' doesn't mean I'm comfortable with letting you in, either," Loki goes on. "If you want me to be alright with you helping me, try doing it more often, and _not_ just when I'm broken or sobbing or about to have a nervous breakdown. Don't expect me to let you be my best friend after you've been absent from my life for two whole years.

"'_Brother_' doesn't mean trust or comfort. Those are things I have with Tony – _not_ with you. Not yet."

Thor's eyes brighten the slightest bit at that '_yet_'.

"Now, I am _trying_, Thor. I really am. I've made a lot of allowances for you, and I know it doesn't seem like it, but if I didn't? You'd be out of here and our relationship would be as good as gone." Loki gives a sad little smile, nearly chuckling when he says, "You don't know how monstrous I am. You don't know how much I could _hate_ you, how easy it would be for me to let myself loathe you with every cell in my body." He puts an accusatory index finger to his chest. "You think I'm a bitch? Give me a reason to give up on you and I'll be ten times worse in a heartbeat."

(I want to take this moment to point out the fact that Loki has been given _many_ reasons to stop trying to work with Thor over the past two months. The Curious Case of the Foodless Kitchen? Perfect example. Oh, and do you remember what happened at Steve's party? Even _better_. Also, let's not forget the absolute _disaster_ that was Tony's birthday. That should have had Thor out of the house in a hot minute – but it _didn't_. Think about that.)

Thor lowers his gaze then, the corners of his mouth pulling down in a small, almost weary frown. An unusual surge of pity hits Loki at the sight of his brother so disheartened, but he isn't quite done yet, and _pity_ is an emotion that isn't really known for its ability to sway or temper him.

"'_Brother_' doesn't mean that I'm not still me, and _brother_ doesn't mean that you're not still you, okay?" Loki asks, the question rhetorical and his eyes softer, more open. When Thor looks up at him again, almost curious, he says, "Remember that the next time you say that word and expect me to turn into a Care Bear, because I _promise_ you – I'm the worst person you'll ever meet, and being your _brother_ doesn't change that one bit."

A peculiar look comes over Thor when Loki says that, one that has his brow wrinkling and his eyes taking on a curious quality. He starts to shake his head – slowly at first, then with more certainty after he's realized that he's doing it and that he _means _it, and then he's saying, "I don't think so."

Loki blinks, asks, "You don't think _what_ so?"

"That you're the worst person I'll ever meet," Thor answers. A smirk tugs at his lips. "I think Janet Van Dyne beats you out of that ballpark."

Loki can't stop himself from snorting a laugh at that, his hand flying up to cover his mouth and his eyes crinkling at the corners. "And who's the second-worst?" he questions, half-expecting to hear his own name in reply.

"Emma," Thor concedes after a moment of thought, and when Loki raises an inquisitive brow at him, he elaborates, "She's a bitch."

"You hang out with her," Loki points out, watching as Thor gets to his feet to lift Fenrir out of the bathtub and reaching for a clean towel.

"That doesn't mean she isn't a bitch," Thor counters, guiding Fenrir to sit between Loki's legs so that the man can dry him off. "I kind of _have_ to be around her when she's a cheerleader."

"You don't have to hang out with anyone you don't want to," Loki says almost absently, sounding very Frigga-esque to his own ears, his attention halved between his brother and his dog. He carefully rubs Fenrir down with his towel, craning his neck to press an affectionate kiss to the husky's head or nose every so often.

"Easy for you to say," Thor mumbles thoughtlessly. It takes a few seconds of too-vigorous scrubbing for Loki to shove the implications of that comment (like _Why would anyone even want to come near someone as dreadful as him?_ or _He doesn't even know what it's like to be wanted_) aside.

"But, no," Thor goes on in a stronger, louder tone, drawing Loki's eyes his way. "I think being brothers changes us, in a way." He smiles a stupidly bright, stupidly sweet, stupidly _Thor_ smile. "And I don't think you're awful at all."

Loki wonders for the umpteenth time how Thor could be so gullible, how love could make a person so foolish and blind. That's a mystery he doesn't think he'll _ever_ solve, or at least not any time soon.

* * *

After Fenrir's been dried and he's been escorted out of the bathroom, Loki makes himself busy by calling the library to inform Charles of his injury (the resulting conversation gets him out of a month of work, thank _God_) and acquiescing to Thor's request by drawing up a heavily lopsided chore chart (and by _lopsided_, I mean that Thor and Tony have been designated with the bulk of the work and everybody else will just clean up after them). Then, he curls up with Fenrir on the couch and takes a much-needed nap while Thor and Sif play _Mass Effect_ at an unusually (as well as fortunately) acceptable volume.

When he wakes, Fenrir is gone and there are kisses raining on his temple. His mouth curls into a tiny, half-hiding smile before he can get a chance to put a leash on his behavior/emotions/demeanor, and, without thinking, he reaches out to fist his hand against what definitely feels like a chest. A solid, warm chest that probably (and most definitely _should_) belongs to Tony. _Mmm_.

"You awake, turtledove?" Tony chuckles, his breath feathering over the shell of Loki's ear, and Loki can't stop himself from flinching at the feel of that, from jerking away from the invisible spiders his boyfriend is blowing onto his skin. When he finally happens to pry his eyes open, he finds Tony hovering over him with love and amusement smeared across his face in equal and beautiful amounts, and he doesn't think twice before he's smiling again – more openly this time – helpless to the lack of control that usually accompanies sleepiness and Tony's presence.

"I am now," Loki murmurs, pulling his hand away from his boyfriend so that he can stretch and fold his arms over his head. Halfway through that flex, Tony catches his lips in a proper kiss – a humming, sweet, absolutely _breathtaking_ kiss – and it's all he can do to not just melt into the sofa and devolve into a primitive, blubbering mess of a person. Tony has a thing about doing that to him, a thing that nearly borders on fetishism if Loki knows anything about the man.

"I come bearing gifts," Tony announces once he's pulled away enough to speak (but not so far that they aren't sharing oxygen anymore). It's then when Loki notices the crutches that are tucked under his arm, and his expression swiftly mutates into something perplexed and curious at the sight.

"Where the hell did you get a pair of crutches?" he asks, pushing himself up into a sitting position and bumping noses with Tony as he goes. "And what time is it?"

"Technically, they belong to a local theatre troupe, but I have a friend who's letting me have them for an indefinite period of time. And it's a little after seven-thirty," Tony replies with one of his characteristically triumphant, _Colossus of Rhodes_ sort of smirks. Instead of rearing back to look at Loki directly, he lets his chin rest against the man's chest, grins when Loki snorts at his eccentricity.

"Thank you," Loki manages after a moment, only a little delayed, moving a hand to thread his fingers through Tony's hair, rub the tips of them into his scalp. He's still learning how to express gratitude around his boyfriend, _still_ trying to figure out how to be thankful without being mushy or vulnerable (all three things usually end up being one and the same in his mind).

And really, this whole week has been an educational one for Loki. Between learning how to be Tony's boyfriend – a feat that requires him to be in love and sexy and sweet and responsible and patient and dependent and honest – and figuring out how to be Thor's brother – which means he should be open to suggestions and easier to communicate with and not such a bitch and _again_, responsible and _again_, patient and _yet __**again**_, honest – and _still_ managing to keep a hold on his identity, he feels like he's been the student in a nonstop class on modifying his own behavior. That's pretty unnerving, to be honest.

Despite all this, Tony doesn't seem to notice his apprehension, and he leans up to nuzzle at Loki's nose, briefly biting at his bottom lip (_shit_, there goes the temperature, flying straight into the eighties and nineties) and humming, "You're gonna thank me even more in a second."

"Why do you say that?" Loki whispers against Tony's mouth, his question halfway lost in the not-quite kiss they're sharing. This time, he drapes his arms about the man's shoulders to keep him where he is, close and real and too flawless for words. It's much easier to get physical than it is to be softhearted.

"I have food for you," Tony mumbles into Loki's jaw. When Loki turns his head to give him a slightly inquisitive look, he adds, "It's vegetable lasagna."

Have you ever had _that_ feeling, that feeling where it's like the stars are in perfect alignment and even though the sun isn't shining on you, it's doing just that somewhere else in the world and you're absolutely _delighted_ with that fact, and colors seem more vivid to your eyes and everything is fascinating in the most beautiful of ways and the night is cold but you have a blanket to curl up in or a person to snuggle up with and that simple act of reaching out for something or someone warm is the most accurate description of happiness you can think of? That's the feeling the words '_vegetable lasagna_' fill Loki with.

"I love you so much," Loki half-sighs, half-laughs, and it becomes obvious for the umpteenth time how well Tony knows Loki and how synchronized their wants can be when he kisses him again without being asked or sought to, when he pulls him up into a sitting position and nuzzles his nose into his cheek and succeeds ten times over at getting him to forget about everything but the warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach and the way it feels to be something cherished. Loki almost purrs with pleasure.

"Let's get you fed, shall we?" Tony hums, and he's giving Loki this impossibly adorable, puppyish sort of smirk only Loki would ever get the chance to see as he runs his hands down his biceps, over his elbows, and to his thin, pale wrists, and he squeezes them affectionately a moment before he presses a quick, loving kiss to the inside of one of them, and _shit_, Loki scarcely feels like himself anymore, and by _himself_, I mean bitchy and pessimistic and full of all the negative vibes Tony's so talented at sucking out of him, and while we're here, might I shed some light on a question that's been floating around in Loki's head for the past few months?

A lot of times, Loki thinks to himself that he can only be who he really is when he's around Tony, and it's a well-documented fact that when Mr. Stark is in his company, he's nearly the opposite of the thundercloud of a person he usually is. Does that mean that he's not as awful as he makes himself out to be, or that Tony has a knack for altering the very fiber of his identity? Does that mean that his personality is a suit of armor – something he can easily slip in and out of – or that he hasn't been _himself_ for nearly twenty whole years? Are all of these correct assumptions? Is it true that squares are rectangles?

Loki is far from finding the answers to any of these inquiries, _especially_ when Tony's trying to assist him in his mission to make his body work with a pair of crutches, which might as well be called a twin set of death sentences when he's got Twizzlers for arms and legs. Oh, and his armpits are going to hurt _so fucking __**bad**_ after awhile. Happy day, right?

"You know, I could just carry you everywhere," Tony comments as Loki limps his way across the living room and to the kitchen. He's got one hand wrapped around Loki's elbow – tightly enough to catch him if he stumbles but not so that he's unable to move comfortably.

"Imagine how well that'd go over when you're bringing me to class or taking me to the grocery store," Loki replies, only a little sharp around the edges. "Wouldn't _we_ be a spectacle?"

"I don't care," Tony snorts in that offhanded, beautifully insolent way he has, that way that has Loki both head over heels for him and incredibly aggravated with his existence. He follows Loki into the kitchen with a tiny smirk, adds, "I'd be helping you and you'd be off your feet."

"And getting quite fat at the rate you're going with this whole breadwinning thing," Loki jests, laughing quietly at the tiny pinch Tony gives his elbow.

Now, at the very moment that Loki and Tony walked into the kitchen, Thor and Sif were busying themselves with whatever wonderful Italian dishes Tony decided to get for them (five bucks says he bought them the most unappetizing items on the menu), and although Tony, Fenrir (who is sniffing about around the dining table, by the way), and the fly on the wall wouldn't be able to tell you so, Loki was eyeing the two of them as surreptitiously as he possibly could, reading their body language and watching as they bumped sides like silly high schoolers and were generally really stupid and sweet with one another. Sif was scooping a forkful of spaghetti into Thor's bowl as Thor was smacking a kiss to the crest of her cheek, and suddenly, Loki was full of questions again (unsurprisingly). I suppose it wouldn't hurt to list them while they're relevant.

1. _How exactly does Thor feel about Sif?_

2. _If Thor doesn't love her, why is he being so cozy with her?_

3. _Is he stringing her along for his own pleasure?_

4. _Is he actually capable of being _that_ much of an ass? _(Of course he is.)

5. _And if Sif loves Thor, why does she treat him the way she does?_

6. _Is she protecting herself?_

7. _Also, why is Loki jealous?_

8. _I mean, what kind of sense does it make for Loki to get all ruffled about Thor showing affection to his sort of-kind of girlfriend/fuck-buddy when it's second nature for him to go ballistic if the man so much as _touches_ him? _

9. _Is it true that squares are rectangles?_

These are the sorts of questions that went flying through Loki's head the moment he saw Thor and Sif at his kitchen counter, and although they seemed very critical when they first occurred to him, Tony's pinch distracted him enough to make him start laughing, and when he starts laughing, both Sif and Thor look up at him with these extraordinarily perplexed and intrigued expressions plastered on their faces. It quickly occurs to Loki that Sif has never heard him really laugh before, and seeing as he's never been a particularly smiley person, it makes sense that Thor and Sif would look at him like he's some kind of alien for uttering such an unusual sound. Oops.

"I'll serve your plate, okay?" Tony says after a moment, effectively breaking the somewhat awkward silence that's fallen over the kitchen. He aims a gentle, playful smack at Loki's behind – one that has Loki chuckling again and Thor seemingly on the verge of a stroke – and instructs him to, "Go ahead and make yourself comfortable."

Loki easily (or not, considering his leg) obliges, sitting himself down at the dining table and propping his crutches against the wall behind him. He has to take a few seconds to breathe deeply so that he doesn't end up howling in pain after he's got himself settled, and once he's able to sit still and be at least a little human, he amuses himself by watching Tony, Thor, and Sif poke around at the counter like three wolves passive aggressively fighting over scraps of meat, afraid to touch each other but forced to share the same space. It's kind of hilarious, actually.

Things get a lot less funny once everybody's seated at the table, though, because it's pretty much impossible to make conversation without talking, and _really_, why the hell would Loki want to _talk_ with Thor or Sif, especially when they're _together?_ The only noise in the room for about two and a half minutes (an incredibly uncomfortable period of time for near-silence, mind you) is the sound of forks and knives clinking against the porcelain dishes everyone is eating off of, maybe the occasional _clunk_ of a glass against the table if you're listening close enough. Loki is absently inspecting the lasagna-smeared leopard on his plate and playing footsie with Tony beneath the table when Thor decides to speak up.

"Fandral said he'll cook dinner for us if you ever need him to," the blond announces, drawing six eyes his way. Cue yet another pregnant pause.

"He did?" is all Loki can manage, and as soon as it's out of him, he realizes how impossibly _dumb_ his response is. He briefly imagines himself drowning in pasta sauce.

"Yeah," Thor replies, shoveling pasta into his mouth and doing a stellar job of making a pig out of himself. For fifteen whole seconds (Loki's keeping count), Thor's face is a mess of tomato sauce, parmesan, and stringy, dangling spaghetti noodles; for five more, it's masked by the flimsiest of paper napkins, and while Loki's imagination is barreling down the road it is, he's making his brother out to be a pasta monster with noodles for hair and meatballs for eyes in his heat. Ha.

Once Thor has composed himself enough to speak again, he says, "He's a culinary student."

"That doesn't mean he knows how to cook," Tony comments. In response, Loki kicks him as hard as he's able to, Thor glowers at him the slightest bit, and Sif – rather surprisingly – chuckles.

"He does alright," Thor grumbles, and even though it kind of sounds like he's trying to defend Fandral's abilities, Loki knows simply by the way Thor is _looking_ at Tony that his main objective is asserting his opinion (which we _all_ know matters so much). For the third time in less than five hours, Loki wants to die.

Tony does this quirky, _I don't agree with you but I'm not going to actually say that_ sort of thing with his eyebrows, spearing a ravioli pillow with his fork as he retorts, not taking his eyes off of Thor's, "I'll take your word for it."

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that despite the fact that Tony's being an impudent asshole (that shouldn't surprise _anyone_), this is actually his way of socializing with people, and it's the _only_ way he knows _how_ to socialize with someone else if he isn't charming his way into their bed or isolating himself from them, and Loki is the sole person at this table who's aware of that, and he's kind of going _insane_ due to this useful-yet-damning piece of knowledge, and how is he ever going to make Thor understand why he's in love with Tony if all his brother sees is the too-ostentatious, ultra-thick, not-so-pretty exoskeleton the man constantly struts around in?

(Hint: He won't be able to, not for many years.)

"Tell him I appreciate it," Loki practically mumbles when it becomes apparent that Thor isn't going to dignify Tony's statement with much more than a thinly-concealed grimace and that Tony isn't planning on ceasing to eat his ravioli in a manner that manages to be obnoxious and cheeky but not disgusting or gratuitous. Everything goes completely silent for a few moments after he's spoken, but Loki is too scared and/or aggravated (it's pretty hard to tell the difference in a situation like this) to raise his eyes and watch the scene playing out before him.

And then – "Steve said he'll help, too."

Loki should get a goddamn _trophy_ for his oft-mentioned self-control, because if it weren't for that wonderful personality trait of his, the circumstances of his life would probably be much different than they are at this very moment. He wouldn't have _any_ sort of kinship with _any_ member of his family, for one. He wouldn't be blessed with the lovely house he's staying in (which is ninety-nine percent Frigga's doing, by the way). His relationship with Tony would be radically changed, that's for sure. He probably wouldn't even be _alive_ if he didn't have his precious self-control.

Oh, and there would be lasagna everywhere right about now. And Loki might be screaming. Yep.

"Why does he even _know_ about my injury?" is what comes out of his mouth instead, and the quiet, slightly clipped tone of his voice has everyone at the table looking at him like he's spontaneously transformed into a feral cat or something – a reaction that says _a lot_ about how Loki feels about Steve Rogers and his willingness to aid him (which doesn't even make _sense_, to be honest).

"I told him on the phone earlier," Thor replies around a rather large mouthful of spaghetti. He says it like it's no big deal that he's done such a thing, and, unsurprisingly, that ratchets Loki's irritation up quite a bit more.

"But _why?_" Loki counters, mere centimeters from burning holes into Thor's stupidly hairy, stupidly golden, stupidly _stupid_ face with his eyes and his eyes alone. Lord knows when he developed such a superpower, but ever since he mastered it at the startlingly young age of fourteen, it's been extraordinarily effective in fighting the evil forces of moronic family members and their asshole friends.

"Uhm, because I wanted to?" Thor answers, sounding just as radiantly proud and enlightened as he did the last time he had a Spectacular Idea That Somehow Pertains to Loki's Life For Whatever Reason™. "I thought that maybe he'd wanna help you, and he did want to help you, and _I _wanted him to want to help you, so yeah."

He'd like to thank the Academy.

"I don't _need_ Steve's help," Loki huffs, only pausing so that he can chew on his lasagna without shedding his table manners – things he alone tends to value.

"Uh, correction," Tony blurts, raising an eyebrow just slightly when everyone turns their eyes on him. "You don't _want_ Steve's help."

"Oh, thank you so much, sweetheart," Loki lilts without missing a beat, ever melodramatic and raging with sarcasm. He narrows his eyes at Tony in a glare that would be a hell of a lot more intense if it were directed at Thor (oops), says, "I was terribly confused about the difference. It was driving me absolutely _nuts_."

Thor looks like he's caught between excitement towards Loki's snapping at Tony or anger towards Tony's working on Loki's nerves. As you can probably imagine, this indecisiveness makes for a hilarious expression worthy of a thousand Kodak moments.

Rather than getting upset (and _really_, it's not like Loki expected him to when arguing usually constitutes as _flirting_ between the two of them), Tony smiles, holds a defensive hand up, and replies, "I was just making an observation."

"Oh, and you're just so _good_ at observing, aren't you?" Loki throws back, his fork hitting the side of his plate with a harsh, metallic _clang_ when he drops it and regards Tony directly, and there's heat in his eyes as well as in his voice when he focuses his sharp, jade green eyes on his boyfriend, when he props his jaw against his fist in a display of the oddest combination of dominance, exasperation, and intrigue.

Tony isn't at all slow to respond to Loki's semi-suggestive remark with a pass of his own. He looks downright _devious_ when he purrs, seemingly ignorant of Thor and Sif's presence, "I'm _more_ than prepared to show you firsthand."

Without warning, Thor develops a dry cough of immense proportions and Sif finds it incredibly appropriate to start giggling like a sixth grader, and suddenly, Loki realizes that he and Tony are the only adults in the room (Tony hardly counts as one, to be honest), and he's back in the days when he and Thor were children being forced to witness their parents' romance. Even _then_, he was more mature about listening to Frigga and Odin flirt with each other, and Thor was just as flustered as he is right now.

"Oopsie," Tony mumbles with a smirk that's almost hilarious in its irony and the total lack of sheepishness that accompanies it. A short-lived, imperceptible little smile sneaks onto Loki's face in response, one only Tony's able to catch the tail-end of.

After the initial discomfort that settles over the room after that sudden drop in intensity passes, Thor grabs hold of his nerve again and asks, ever so tactful, "So what's so bad about Steve?"

And just like that, Loki's going from zero to sixty in two seconds flat, setting his face in a dark, stormy scowl, snatching his fork up off his plate, and snapping, "I don't have to answer that question."

That fortunately deters Thor for a few promising moments… until Tony opens his big mouth again to say, "It'd be great if you did, though."

"_Tony_," Loki half-whines, turning to glare at said man a second time in a way that's somehow both beseeching and accusatory.

"But, no," Tony interjects before Loki can say anything further, and Loki has to physically force his lips shut so that he doesn't end up _screaming_ at the man, has to clench his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching out and _slapping_ his boyfriend when he points out, "You never want to talk about why you hate Steve so much."

"Maybe because the two of you would instantly shut me down if I tried to," Loki replies, gesturing frantically between Tony and Thor.

"Maybe because you're not always right," Thor comments.

You could hear a pin drop in the room after Thor says that, and it's like watching a cobra readying itself to strike the poor, helpless creature it's chosen as its prey to see how Loki turns on his brother, his eyebrows raised and his gaze hard and resentful.

And you know, it's not just his pride that's to blame for the anger that flares up inside Loki at Thor's words (though it is a major player in this ballgame). It's the fact that Thor is audacious enough to say such a thing to him when he _himself_ is constantly convinced of his own inherent _rightness_, the fact that he would take _one_ difference of opinion between them and blow it enough out of proportion to insinuate that _Loki_ – who is possibly one of the most self-hating people in the Western Hemisphere – is so arrogant that he believes it's an _impossibility _for him to be incorrect or mistaken. And all after that wonderfully enlightening conversation they had in the bathroom.

But Loki doesn't decide to call Thor out for that. Oh, no. Instead, he turns back to his food, disregards Thor's insult, and says, almost clinically, "He's an asshole." When everyone goes still and shocked (because _oooh_, Loki _swore_ at the dinner table), Loki adds, "That's why I don't like Steve."

"Steve _isn't_ an asshole," Thor huffs in that never-wrong manner of his.

"Oh, he isn't?" Loki retorts. "This man that won't hesitate to rip you a new one if you so much as _look_ in a different direction as him _isn't_ an asshole?"

"He's a great friend, Loki," Thor argues, the beginnings of irritation creeping into his voice.

"And he's the most responsible guy I know," Tony puts in.

"Okay, so he's a good friend and he's responsible," Loki snaps, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "Your saying so doesn't change my opinion of him, and it doesn't automatically invalidate the fact that I've spent over five years watching him act like a dick to anyone who doesn't measure up to his standards."

"You'd like him if you got to know him better," Thor insists. His brows are knitting closer and closer together, his fists are growing tighter and tighter, and his posture is getting tenser and tenser with each passing second, and honestly, no matter how much Loki understands his brother's frustration with this whole situation (mainly because he's often in the same position concerning Tony), it's virtually _impossible_ for him to see Steve in a different light after he's known the man for so long – never mind the fact that twenty-five percent of said impossibility is due to straight-up stubbornness.

"I don't _want_ to get to know him better, and I'm not obligated to," Loki nearly _snarls_, glowering at Thor like he would _strangle _him if he could get away with it, like the man doesn't have the ability or the daring to reach across the table and club him in the jaw.

"_Why_ don't you want to get to know him better?" Thor demands. He throws an exasperated hand into the air as he adds, practically roaring at this point, "Every time Steve tries to talk to you, it's like he's ruined your _life_ or something."

(That's because he _has_, in a lot of ways.)

"He _wanted_ you at his party," Thor goes on. "He wanted you at the homecoming game. Shit, Loki, if I had a dollar for every time Steve asks about you or says he wants to hang out with you, I'd have, like… a ton of dollars."

"I _don't __**care**_, Thor!" Loki almost _shrieks_, dropping his fork onto his plate again and shoving his fingers into his hair with the sole intention of simply _ripping it out_. He shuts his eyes for a moment – if only so he doesn't have to see his brother while he tries to achieve something like Zen for a second or two – then breathes, "I _don't_ care, I _don't_ have to like Steve or hang out with him or care about what he wants, I _don't_ have to do _anything_ I don't want to, I _don't_–"

"Can you just _stop_ being such a hardass for at least two seconds?" Thor cuts Loki off, effortlessly slipping from the realm of anger to complete and utter childishness.

"Can _you _just stop trying to argue with me?" Loki retorts.

"Can _you _just stop being argumentative?" Thor counters, and at this point, he looks like he'd have little-to-no qualms with slamming Loki into the ground right now.

Unfortunately, Loki shares those sentiments, but before _anyone_ can do any body-slamming or face-caving, Sif (_yes_, she _still_ exists, everyone) raises her voice to let out a desperate, "_Hey!_"

Loki and Thor tear their eyes away from each other to look at Sif, who is holding a cautious-but-commanding hand in the air and glancing between the two of them like she isn't sure whether to be intimidated by the astounding viciousness they've shown towards one another (a viciousness that's fascinating when you think about the fact that they wouldn't show it to anyone but each other) or aggravated with their behavior. She keeps the room uncomfortably – yet blissfully – silent for several lengthy, heavy-footed moments with the divine female power of her exposed palm before she asks, "Can I say something?"

Loki almost says '_No_', but because he's incapable of refraining to do so when his mouth is open and Thor is too baffled to speak, Sif goes without an answer for a few incredibly long seconds. Then, like an unexpected, slap-in-the-face sort of miracle, Tony replies, "Please."

(_Wow._)

Sif gives Tony a brief, half-shocked, half-grateful glance before she's turning back to Loki and Thor and saying, "So, it's apparent that Loki dislikes Steve."

"That's a bit of an understatement," Loki mumbles, garnering himself an irritated glare from Thor.

"_That being said_," Sif continues, scarcely missing a beat and easily succeeding at exerting her dominance over this situation again. "I personally don't think it'd be conducive to Loki's recovery if Steve were to help out, because, I mean – how helpful would he actually _be_ if the person he's trying _to_ help is intolerant of him?"

At first, nobody speaks. They simply react like so:

Thor just _stares_ at Sif like she's suddenly become a stranger to him, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth hung slightly ajar. Such a reaction could be due to the fact that the woman is kind of defending Loki, or it could be warranted by the _words_ that came out her mouth while she was doing so. _Conducive_ and _intolerant_ aren't exactly terms that come up in everyday conversation, and it's quite doubtful that Sif's ever used them around Thor White and her fellow dwarves if Thor's expression is anything to go by.

Tony somehow manages to look both displeased (with the lack of Steve in this formula to Loki's recovery, let's assume) and satisfied (probably with the imminent resolution of the monstrous argument this conversation has become). He's resigned himself to finishing off the food on his plate and refusing to look at anyone in particular.

Loki is just _astonished_ with this turn of events, and more than he's nursing the residual bitterness he has towards Sif (as well as Thor, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun) for all the bullshit that happened on Tony's birthday, he's actually _thankful _for the woman's words, even if they _aren't_ specifically aimed at supporting him, and that _scares_ him, because he isn't _ready_ to forgive her yet, and he doesn't think he'll _ever_ be ready to forgive her, and he's having the same dilemma he had with Tony not twenty minutes earlier – this uncertainty with how to appear appreciative but not vulnerable and, in Sif's case, _friendly_.

So he ends up just watching Sif with the most impassive expression of all _time_ on his face until he figures out how he's going to respond to the beautiful piece of her mind she's given everyone at the table, until it occurs to him that he can totally kick Thor's _ass_ by being self-righteous and overly-relieved about his gratitude.

"_Thank you_," he finally explodes with, surprising everyone with the sheer weight of his acknowledgement. He holds a hand of commendation out towards Sif, looks directly at Thor, and adds, "That didn't take _rocket science_ to figure out, now did it?"

Thor relocates his gaze to his brother, sheepish and aggravated and defeated all at once. He gives a heavy, uncharacteristic sigh, grumbles, "You could have just _said_ that."

"It should have been obvious," Loki snaps with an air of finality, effectively depleting any room for argument and discouraging any further discussion on the matter of Steve Rogers and his injury.

After that, all conversation rapidly peters out and dies, and the atmosphere swiftly returns to the state it was in before Thor decided to start talking in the first place. Tony finishes his dinner first, but he acts like he hasn't until Loki has swallowed the last of his lasagna and gulped down the rest of the root beer he's been sipping on. Then, the man makes it his mission to remove their dishes from the table and dump them in the sink while Loki excuses himself from the table and embarks on a somewhat lengthy journey to the bathroom.

And you know, even though it was barely apparent then, Loki _did_ pick up on Thor's mention of Steve's highly unusual interest in him and his company, and said mention confused the _hell_ out of him –still _does_ confuse him – considering how openly churlish and bitchy and downright _unhappy_ he is in the man's presence, and suddenly, he thinks that he dislikes Steve _that_ much more _because_ of his absurd fascination with him – but not nearly as much as he's mystified and almost _transfixed_ by him (ew) – and he kind of _despises_ himself for feeling the way he does just when everything started to make sense to him, and once again, today has been absolutely _radical_.

* * *

Tony is helping Loki strip down and ease himself into a bathtub full of near-steaming, hilariously (and by _hilarious_, I mean _almost half a bottle of bubble bath because Tony wouldn't know how to run a bath if his life depended on it_) sudsy water after he's followed him to the bathroom, and – rather surprisingly – he _doesn't_ attempt to feel him up or come onto him in any way. The most he does is give Loki a thorough once-over before he's submerged in what could easily pass as a hot spring, and though neither of them say anything about the unusual lack of electricity between them, Loki suspects that it has something to do with the obviously petulant mood he's in.

Oh, well. None of that really matters when he's hissing in pain and attempting to position his leg in a way that doesn't have him wanting to cry or scream or expel any other noise of the negative and miserable sort. He ends up propping his heel against the lip of the tub and breathing himself into the fuzzy sort of forced-calm that makes you feel almost dizzy with serenity, then slowly sinks into the bath until his nose is a centimeter from kissing the surface of the water and his vision is obscured by white, frothy bubbles.

And then – "Are you trying to drown yourself?"

Loki smiles a bit, raises his chin to say, "Not this time."

Tony pauses for a moment, seemingly taken aback, then asks, "Does that mean that you actually _do_ try to drown yourself every time you take a bath?

Loki hums softly in acknowledgement, idly stirring the suds floating above his chest as he replies, "Sometimes I think about it, but I haven't actually _tried_ to do it in years." He closes his eyes and immerses his head completely in his bathwater for a moment – fear grabbing hold of him for the entirety of the time he's under – before coming up for air and letting his gaze fall upon Tony, who's quite literally perched on the toilet seat like a bird or an owl and watching him with the beginnings of worry touching his stare.

"What?" Loki asks, tucking his damp, inky hair behind his ears.

"You're not happy," Tony says, and the words come out of his mouth more like he's making a simple observation than he's answering Loki's question, but Loki knows that he's doing both at once because he's aware of the fact that Tony speaks in ways he doesn't mean sometimes, and that in spite of how suave and sociable and so very _loquacious_ he is, he doesn't know how to talk sometimes. _At all._ And that's seriously one of the saddest, most beautiful things Loki knows about his boyfriend.

"Well, _duh_," Loki retorts, tilting his head towards Tony in a manner that could have been condescending if he'd only screwed his face up the right way. He softens his words with a hint of a smile, drones, "When am I _ever_ happy?"

"When you're with _me_, if I'm lucky or you're manic," Tony answers, and when Loki's expression tightens the slightest bit in response, the man shakes his head and drives his fingers into his hair, says, "Forget I ever said that."

"Why?" Loki asks, resting his cranium against the wall behind him and letting his eyelids fall halfway-closed. "You're right."

Tony makes this _tsk_ing, displeased sort of noise at that, shifting his weight a bit as he sighs, "For some odd reason, that doesn't just _make my day_ like I thought it would have."

Loki can hear it clearly – the very first sparks of attitude cropping up in Tony's tone, his words, his demeanor, like the foremost notes in the sonata that is the turbulent temperament he will most certainly possess if Loki doesn't do something quickly, and _really_, Loki _cannot_ have Tony being all pissy with him when he isn't exactly a ray of sunshine himself and the man is the only source of emotional support he has at the moment.

(Also, it might say a _lot_ about their relationship when the slightest change in one of their moods can send the other into a complete tailspin in about as quickly as a nanosecond.)

_So_, because Loki is as crazy for Tony as he is perceptive of his state of mind and eternally after his own interests, he casts his eyes the man's way, hooks his left hand over the lip of the tub, and catches his boyfriend's attention with a quiet, "Tony?"

Tony meets his eyes, silently questioning and not quite as aggravated as Loki feared he'd be yet.

"Come here," Loki murmurs, turning his wrist upwards so that he can beckon Tony to him with a flick of his fingers. He makes sure to look especially longing when he attaches a soft, "Please," to the end of that request, all round, pretty eyes and slightly pouting lips that are scientifically _proven_ to make Tony's heart skip a beat or two.

Most people would call that kind of behavior _manipulation_, but in Loki's eyes (which arguably aren't the best pair of peepers to be looking through when his perspective has been almost permanently warped by years of degradation and inferiority and a pathological need for control), he's just appealing to Tony's better interests – of which include him being adorable and in need of his everlasting love and affection.

Tony only hesitates for a brief, somewhat telling millisecond before he's hopping off of the toilet seat and moving over to the side of the tub, where he sinks to the ground (presumably so that he can see/speak with Loki better than he could standing up), crosses his legs Indian style, and asks, "What's wrong, babe?"

Now, if today had gone at least a _little_ better than it has and Loki wasn't truly on the verge of walling himself up _emergency_-style – a style that entails the sort of self-defensiveness he exhibits only when things are going their very _worst_ and the thought of simply _communicating_ with other people makes him shaky and nauseous with anxiety – Loki would _definitely_ tell Tony exactly what's bothering him and why it irks him so, but because none of that is the case, he'd much rather go without answering the man's question for a long, _long_ time.

So he _doesn't_ answer him… not immediately, anyways. Instead, Loki leans over the edge of the bathtub and, without warning, presses a moist, insistent kiss to Tony's lips. He doesn't say anything; he just waits for Tony to kiss him back, waits for the feeling of the man's fingers wrapping around the back of his neck and, thoughtless and just a bit eager, brings his dripping hands up to cage his boyfriend's face and keep him close. And he draws that kiss out for as long as he possibly can, and maybe it's the lack of oxygen and maybe it's their moods and maybe it's the fact that he's naked and wet and submerged in borderline-scalding water, but by the time they've pulled away from each other, they're both practically _panting_ with want and Loki feels like a goddamn _genius_ for acting the way he did and Tony is tracing the curve of his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue and that has to be the most perfect sensation of _all time_. No joke.

Of course, perfection quickly makes itself scarce when Tony murmurs, his voice sing-songy and his breath brushing against Loki's mouth, "As wonderful as that was, it wasn't an answer."

What an asshole.

"I don't want to talk about it," Loki sighs, hastily leaning forward to kiss a trail from the corner of Tony's mouth to the sharp square of his jaw and hoping that the man will latch onto the bait he's throwing his way (which he won't, unsurprisingly, because no matter how physically inclined he is, he _isn't_ going to let Loki seduce him out of his mind if it's evident that something's the matter).

"_Why?_" Tony asks, gently pushing Loki backwards with the hands he has clasped to his neck. Loki can't stop himself from scowling as soon as he's face-to-face with Tony's quietly frowning, obviously worried, slightly jarred expression, can't help but pull his hands away and cut his eyes downwards, avoidant and stubborn, when the man says, "If you clam up on me, you're just going to feel worse later, and believe me, I'd rather that you cried a lot right now than cried a _whole_ lot later."

It's funny because it's true, but Loki can't seem to make himself smile.

"Loki, look at me," Tony orders when it becomes apparent that Loki won't respond or acknowledge him unless he's forced to. Loki only obliges when he feels Tony's thumb stroke the side of his neck, touch the place where his jawline terminates at his earlobe.

And then they just kind of watch each other for a long, comfortable half-a-minute, and Loki's pretty sure they're having one of those moments where they're communicating without words and being really deep and wistful and dramatic until Tony just throws him for a new one by saying, extremely out of the blue, "Is it Steve?"

Have you ever closed your fingers in a car door? Or, say, had someone flush the toilet while you were in the shower? Maybe you've been an Olympic runner one second and a paraplegic from the waist down the next, and you've found yourself face down on the ground you were just jogging on with a wounded sense of pride and possibly a broken nose?

If you haven't had the displeasure of experiencing any of the above, think about how Loki felt when he fell earlier this afternoon. That kind of shock and humiliation and anger is what slaps him in the face when he hears Steve's name, and _goddammit_, he absolutely _cannot_ bring himself to give a damn about salvaging _anyone's _feelings when he blurts, unthinking and uncaring, "Get out."

(And you know, right now, when Thor isn't there dividing his attention and he's _naked_ and _wet_ and mere fucking _inches_ from Tony and they're _touching_ each other and he's _upset_ and did I mention _naked and wet_, Loki realizes that he isn't just angry about the fact that everyone in the world – _including_ Steve Rogers – wants him to be _friends_ with Steve Rogers. That he is throwing up every red flag he happens to have in his box of red flags that mean _hey, he's not all right_ and – dare I say it again – _**naked **__and __**wet**_ and literally in the palms of Tony's hands, and Tony is thinking about _Steve __**Fucking **__Rogers_, who, by the way, is _not_ the man who sacrificed a grand deal of his self-doubt and dignity and vanity and fear to give himself up to him and have mindblowing sex with him and do the impossible by _falling in love with him_ – _**that**_, my friends, is making Loki highly fucking _pissed_.)

At first, Tony gives Loki this perplexed, uncertain look that quickly makes it obvious that he's not sure if he's joking, but Loki isn't slow to make himself clear, isn't slow to nod his head the slightest, ugliest bit and say, "No, I'm serious. _Get out_."

Tony's expression pinches with surprise and distress as Loki breaks free of his hold, as Loki sinks back into his bathwater and glowers at the wall opposite him and purposely pays attention to the pain in his knee because it makes him feel more powerful, more incensed, more trifling and wounded and fucking _justified_, dammit.

And then, because they've done this tango many, _many_ times before, Tony's face morphs into a mask of passive, knowing, _irritated_ acceptance, and he asks, "What happened, just now?"

Loki tips his chin up enough to retort, "What do you _think_ happened?"

"Well, _I don't __**know**_, Loki! Why do you think I asked you?" Tony snaps, suddenly five times as cross as he was just _seconds_ before. When Loki looks at the man, he's halfway to glaring at him and he's got his elbow propped against the edge of the bathtub and a tense, crab-clawed hand in his hair, and if Loki pays close enough attention, he can see that Tony's not just mad – he's _hurt_, and he's hurt because he _isn't talking_ to him. And that kind of changes _a lot_.

Loki watches Tony for awhile after he's come to that realization, tongue-tied and strained and just _begging_with his eyes for the man to understand him, silently telling him how very, very pained and inconvenienced he is by the necessity that he speak, and here he goes on making words happen, asking, quite rhetorically, "Do you understand how unbelievably _sick_ I am of hearing and arguing and _talking_ about _Steve?_ Do you know how _insane_ that's making me?"

Tony blinks, his expression softening a tad. He doesn't say anything, so Loki assumes that either the man is unable to argue with him or it's okay for him to continue.

"Everywhere I go, he's _there_ in some way," he goes on, raking his thin, nimble fingers through his dripping hair and relocating his gaze to the expanse of water before him. "Either someone is talking about him or trying to make me like him or he's just right up in my fucking face, acting like we're the best of friends or something." The word '_fucking_' flew out of his mouth completely by accident, but it's pretty indicative of how aggravated he really is. He scoffs quietly, plunges his hand back into the water just this shy of unceremoniously as he comments, "Hell, every time I so much as _think_ about Steve, I want to shoot myself in the head."

"Why does he bother you so much?" Tony asks, his tone low and even, and _now_, he's _not _being confrontational or nosy or annoying just for the hell of it – he's actually trying to find out what's so _wrong_ about Steve.

But because he's avoidant by nature and – despite that he's _still_ livid over Tony's persistent concern for and about Steve – _doesn't_ want to upset Tony anymore than he already has, Loki simply replies, "I thought I clarified that ten minutes ago."

"But you _didn't_, not really," Tony says, leaning over so that he can cross his arms over the edge of the tub and resting his chin atop his elbow. He gives Loki this _look_, this look that's questioning and confused and lost all at once, and more than it makes Loki feel claustrophobic, it makes him feel like he's being unreasonable by attempting to salvage his feelings (which he _isn't_, by the way). Tony frowns a little, tilting his head just slightly and asking, "What has he ever done to you?"

You see, as much as Loki has vented and complained and cried to Tony about his life, he's never done any of that over matters concerning Steve, and do you know _why?_

Because Steve is one of Tony's best friends. Because Loki knows that if he _did_ decide to bitch about the man, he'd probably do a world of _awful_ when it comes to him and Tony's relationship – _especially_ now that they're dating and _especially _since he isn't entirely sure about how Tony feels about Steve at this point in time. Because he _can't_ lose Tony's love and respect (or at least his intimacy) over _Steve __**Fucking **__Rogers_. Because he has more sense than that, believe it or not.

But now Tony wants him to break his silence, and _honestly_, Loki is too worked up about today and tired of not talking about this and confused about what exactly Tony's trying to get out of him and _why the __**hell**_ it matters so much to stop himself from _finally_ explaining his feelings. It's not like this night could get any _better_, anyway.

Loki isn't looking at Tony when he says, voice soft and eyes down, "Steve… Steve has stolen almost everything that's ever mattered to me from right beneath my fingertips since the day he came into my life."

There's a lengthy, anxious moment of quiet after that's out in the air, during which Tony just kind of gawks at Loki, obviously taken aback, and Loki contemplates the possibility of elaborating on what he just said. He probably should if he wants Tony to stop looking at him like he's insane and/or on the verge of having a nervous breakdown (both of which he _is_, by the way).

"As soon as he moved here, he had Thor," Loki concedes, leaning back against the wall behind him once more and maintaining the lack of eye contact he has with Tony. "The two of us were already growing apart, but the second Clint introduced Thor to Steve, there was nothing I could do to stop him from running away from me and straight to Mr. Perfect himself." He sniffs wetly, rubbing an index finger beneath his nose and forcing himself to breathe at a normal pace else he has an anxiety attack or something.

"Then he stole my best friend," Loki goes on. He allows himself to glance at Tony, but only for a split second; only long enough to see the shock and the bewilderment and the everything dreadful and painful and _no, he __**can't**__ see that and not totally lose his shit_ all over his face, and then he's turning away to stare at the wall and he's practically _breathing_-_choking_-_biting_ out, "He and all his friends spent a whole year torturing her, and by the time school started up again, she'd committed suicide and I didn't have a brother o-or a cousin or a-a-an _anybody_ to lean on." Loki shrugs a brief, bitter shrug, then, squeezing his eyes firmly shut for an instant before he's adding, as if it's simply an afterthought, "Of course, then the accident happened, and even though he was _so very interested_ in being my friend or whatever, did he come to visit me while I was in the hospital? Did he talk to me when I came back to school – a place where _everybody_ knew that I was literally _out of my mind_ and couldn't get through a class period without crying or breaking down? Did he do _anything_ but _stare_ at me with his stupid, _stupid_, horribly pitying eyes while he, Thor, and Clint went on with their perfectly sane, therapy-free, athletic, popular kid, friend-filled, always-smiling, always-_happy_ lives?" He's crying, now, and he only knows it because the muscles and skin around his eyes are warm and he's inches away from _hyperventilating_ as he answers his own questions with a soft, decisive, "No."

Loki takes a moment to wipe at his cheeks – a dumb, futile move when his hands are just as soaked as his face – and for about thirty seconds, it's all he can do to take deep, easy breaths and not come falling apart at the seams. When he lets himself behold Tony again – who's been so unusually quiet throughout the entirety of his rant (and I use the word '_unusual_' not only because Tony is a chatterbox of a person, but because even when Loki vents to him, he isn't at all hesitant to put a word in every thirty seconds) – the man's eyes are wide and dark and just brimming with something like disbelief and sympathy and his brows are forming a tense little pyramid in the center of his forehead and his mouth is hung open in amazement and _shit –_ that's almost enough to make Loki stop talking right then and there, but he's _not_ done yet, and if Tony wanted an epic declaration of all his feelings and agony, an epic declaration of all his feelings and agony is what he's going to get.

That's why Loki doesn't stop looking at his boyfriend when he says, "And then he stole you."

Tony's features _finally_ do something different, then, something that doesn't entail anything solicitous or shocked. Now, he looks defeated – _distraught_, even – and even though Loki doesn't fully understand _why_ the man would get so upset over him declaring what he just did, he isn't planning on shutting up or slowing down.

"By the time that happened and you'd told me that you had met Steve, I wasn't even capable of being surprised anymore," Loki muses, almost laughing as he speaks. He gives Tony a disaffected little smile, says, "I knew it was only a matter of time."

"Loki…" Tony starts to say, but like_ hell_ is Loki going to let the man change his mind, like _hell_ is he going to stop just when he's getting to the point he's been building up to.

So, he cuts his boyfriend off, cries, "And you met us both on the same day, too!" Tony freezes at that, goes still and rigid with fight when Loki shakes his head and babbles on, "Oh, and I _know_ I was an asshole to you and I _know_ you weren't even _remotely_ interested in becoming my best friend or _anything_ but a notch in my bedpost at that point, and like I was _ever_ going to be as flawless as _Steve_, but after awhile, I felt like I could have been, Tony." He blinks, and tears go tumbling down his cheeks. "_You_ made me feel like I could have been. You were my only friend, and you made me feel like a goddamn _prince_ until that _Steve __**Rogers**_ came around to steal your love and attention and ruin my life with his perfect smile and his perfect face and his fucking _responsibility_ and his knack for being a good friend or whatever the hell you and everyone else say he has – everything I _don't_ have and never _will_ have.

"I can't compete with him!" Loki exclaims, his voice high and desperate and his eyes shining with moisture. "He's mentally healthy and popular and strong and masculine and oh-so _fucking _charismatic, and what am I? _Crazy_, and _misanthropic_, and thin as a toothpick and literally _this_ close to being a Disney Princess." He pinches the air for emphasis, watches the way Tony winces at the display. "He's the kind of person you _dream_ about being with." He lowers his gaze for a moment, shaking his head in resignation. "I'm the kind of person you beat yourself up about wanting."

"Do you really think I feel that way about you?" Tony asks, and his words are unexpected in their suddenness and their coherency and the fact that _wow_, he managed to string together a whole sentence without Loki interrupting him. But he's staring at Loki with the same wounded expression he was wearing earlier, the one that says he's just as angry as he is upset, and _really_, that he's getting pissed off right _now_ is kind of _infuriating_ for reasons that will become apparent shortly –

"_Yes_, because you _told_ me that's how you felt about me!" Loki retorts, instantly succeeding at rendering Tony silent again. "If I'm not driving you crazy, I'm running away from you, and you _know_ that, and _I _know that, and _I_ can't change that about me and _you_ can't change that about me and I'm not _Steve_ and Steve _wouldn't_ do that!"

Tony glances downwards, at a loss for words and outdone by Loki's deduction. He begins to open his mouth to say something, but the only thing that comes out of him is a muted, stuttering sigh of a breath that reminds Loki just how much alike the two of them are, reminds him that maybe he _should_ start to ease up before he does something he's going to regret more than he usually does.

Sniffing softly, Loki scoots on over to the side of the bathtub – causing the water to undulate and swell when he does –, curses when his change in position disturbs his sprain, and reaches for Tony's hand, wrapping his fingers around the man's and saying in a much calmer – yet just as strained – tone than he was using before, "I'm not trying to belittle our relationship. I promise you, I'm _not_. And I know I'm more than just your second choice."

Tony's eyes meet his after that comes out of him, and despite that he still appears to be hurt and forlorn by the earful Loki gave him, there's a trace of hope in his gaze.

That such ray of light is why Loki can't bring himself to look at Tony when he murmurs, "It's just that… what I learned tonight was that no matter how injured or distressed or vindicated I am, Steve will _always_ be better than me, even if it's because he wants to be my friend." He spies his reflection in the bathwater beneath him, watches as it ripples once his tears hit its surface. "For all I know, you're still infatuated with him."

The air grows cold once Loki says that, and at first, neither of them can make themselves say anything to the other. Loki knows he dropped a bombshell by admitting what he just did, and he knows because his heart feels heavy as well as hollow in his chest, knows because his throat is getting tighter and tighter and he can't keep his eyes open without a _river_ accidentally falling out of them, knows because he can physically _feel_ Tony's stare – hard and intense and impossibly penetrating even when he can't see it.

But then – without warning and without Loki expecting him to (he honestly assumed that Tony would finally come to his senses and realize that he's actually the worst person to _ever_ maintain a relationship with, then proceed to hightail his ass out of there for good) – Tony takes his face in his hands and forces him to meet his eyes a moment before he's kissing him again, firmly and intimately and in a way that makes it difficult for Loki to even _think_ about Steve or Steve and Tony or Steve and himself or Steve and _anybody_ anymore, and now, they're the way they were before this conversation even began and (ironically) what Tony's giving Loki _isn't_ an answer or a solution of any sort, but it's wonderful and sheltering and Loki can't afford to think twice about taking it.

And once they've pulled away for oxygen at last, Tony wastes no time in swiping his thumbs across Loki's cheeks and murmuring almost incoherently, "I love you, Loki, I _swear_, I _love_ you, and I meant what I said on my birthday, I _did_, I _still_ do, I _promise_." He pauses just long enough to swallow, then asks, "Do you remember what I said, what I said when you told me you wanted me?"

Loki nods without even having to think about his response.

Tony smiles one of those nervous, involuntary, oxymoronic sort of smiles that tend to appear on his face when he's totally _flipping out_ on the inside but he's trying _desperately_ not to show it (smiles that Loki can see through in a heartbeat). He moves to lean his forehead against Loki's, says, "You know how weird this is for me and how unbelievably _awful_ I am at doing this whole heart-to-heart thing…"

"I'm sorry…" Loki starts to apologize, but Tony stops him with a brief, shushing kiss on the lips before he can even get into the thick of his remorse.

"I didn't say that to make you feel bad," Tony half-chuckles, shaking his head in conjunction with his words. "I said that because it's true and because it's the reason why I was too fucking stupid to realize that you were so upset about me and Steve. But I need you to realize something, okay?"

Loki lets out a quiet, breathy sob, blinking some of the moisture out of his eyes as Tony (quite disgustingly, but in a really sweet way) wipes at the mucus running from his nose and replying, "I'll try."

"You better, because I don't touch just _anybody's _snot," Tony huffs, grinning when Loki laughs at his jest. His face softens the slightest bit when he says, "I don't want you to compare yourself to Steve or think that he's better than you because he's not as loud or intense or flawed or _different_ as you are, you understand? _Especially_ not when it comes to me." He touches the corner of Loki's mouth with the thumb that he _doesn't_ have covered in mucus. "There's a reason why _you're_ the one I'm sitting here on a bathroom floor to talk to, trying to be a better person for instead of… instead of just wishing and giving up because it's too hard." Tony's eyes tighten momentarily, but the bitterness Loki sees in them runs away just as fast as it came rushing in. "I don't have that kind of friendship with Steve – that's all _you_, baby."

Loki can't help it, can't stop the shock of that revelation from furrowing his eyebrows and forcing an incredulous, "Really?" tumbling forth from his lips. He he's fully aware of how ridiculous he sounds, questioning Tony like that, but _honestly_, he's spent the past year absolutely convinced that _Steve_ has been the special one between them in terms of their relationship with Tony – _not_ the other way around – and to be told otherwise, well… it's kind of alarming.

"_Really_ really," Tony replies, his mouth curling into a smirk once more. He waits until Loki finds it in himself to give him a tiny smile in return before he deems it appropriate to kiss him again, and even though it's kind of a gross, awkward exchange (considering all the snot and tears and bathwater mixed into it), it isn't anything short of magnificent.

"Now, clean yourself up so I can take a shower and you can get in bed, alright?" Tony instructs, reaching for the washcloth hanging over the edge of the tub so he can toss it at Loki's face and quickly making apparent that _yes_, things are going to be okay for the remainder of the night. Loki just manages to catch the cloth before it hits his nose.

* * *

After he's sure that Fenrir's been fed and that Thor doesn't need anything (because honestly, he's pretty much completely adopted his brother at this point and his injury hasn't changed that one bit), Loki lets Tony carry him to bed, get him into some clean, loose-fitting clothes, and elevate his sprain with pillows he's stolen from Thor's room. Then, he spends about fifteen minutes staring at his television without really seeing it, rubbing his fingers into the fur on Fenrir's forehead, and fighting sleep in favor of sorting out the mess of his thoughts and waiting for Tony to finish taking his shower so he can crawl into bed with him.

Now, before you up and assume that Loki is having something of a crisis right now, I want you to know that _one_ – you'd be right if you were planning to, and _two _– what's happening at the moment occurs nearly every single night as he's attempting to go to sleep. The only things that distinguish tonight from the usual are Loki's lack of ability to busy himself with any cleaning he might have to do around the house or cross the _universe_ that is his room to grab his laptop or a book to read and the fact that he's awaiting Tony's presence only a little shy of anxiously, and as a result, he's pretty much _stuck_ with his clusterfuck of a thought-space and completely deprived of a way to run from this situation. And that kind of makes him tearful – whenever he manages to pause long enough to realize how edgy he actually _is_, mind you.

First, his thoughts begin to revolve around what tomorrow might turn out to be, and Loki finds himself taking a stab at fashioning a plausible idea for how the next day will work out. He quickly deduces that he probably won't have time to bathe himself tomorrow morning, nor will he be able to cook breakfast for Thor (_or_ Tony, or possibly even _Sif_) due to the fact that he can't even _stand up_ without the aid of crutches, so that leaves him with around fifteen minutes he normally _wouldn't_ have, but before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's back up forty words or so and drop in on the subject of Thor.

Loki hasn't yet forgiven his brother for what transpired today, and _that_ – the very existence of _that_ as a thing that _didn't_ happen and _won't_ happen for about a week or so – is the first thing he thinks about when the man's name crosses his mind. He actually isn't even sure if he's forgiven Thor for the shit he pulled on Tony's birthday – in spite of all that hugging and crying they did the morning after – and that such uncertainty of the most infuriating sort has him wanting to be entirely awash with anger and depressed out of his mind and living on his own and totally friendless and just _all by __**himself**_ in his unhappiness, because _honestly_, he's seriously questioning what exactly is the point of trying to open himself up and reach out to people when they're as stupid and ignorant as they are and they'll hurt you at every single turn you make happen to take simply because they're too selfish and inconsiderate to take the time to count how many scars they've left on you or realize that they've made a mistake for longer than the ten minutes it takes them to shove their twenty-four-hour pain pill of a fucking apology down your throat, and _oops_, that would be Loki reaching up to cup his face in his hands and letting out a long, ragged breath and catching the frustrated little tears welling up in his eyes with the tips of his fingers.

He tells himself to stop crying, then, figuring that he's already done enough of it throughout the afternoon. Plus, he doesn't want Tony to walk into the room, see him having an emotional breakdown, and (because the man has a _serious_ messiah complex, if you hadn't already noticed) raise _hell_ trying to make things all better for him. He can only handle so many serious discussions and catharses in one day.

So, Loki takes a long moment to sniffle and blink his tears as well as his fury away, spreading his hands in front of him and mindlessly inspecting all ten color-coated nails before him, each painted the color of gold leaf.

By the time he reaches the pinkie finger of his right hand, Loki's wondering about Steve again, and more than he's upset or irritated by the thought of him, he's confused by what he learned about him today. _Why_ would Steve want to be his friend? And why would he be so _interested_ in him? Why would he be interested in him _at all_ when the two of them couldn't be anymore different and when Loki has spent the past five years hating his guts sort of-kind of-_really _fucking openly? It's not like Steve actually even _knows_ Loki or anything, except he probably _does_ to a certain extent, no thanks to Thor, Tony, and their tendencies to be wildly indiscriminate with the information they spout to everyone and their mothers.

And then Loki is all pissed off and worked up again, and the reason _why _he's all pissed off and worked up again is the fact that he's downright _terrified_ of the prospect of Steve Rogers knowing him as intimately as he very well might, and there's a part of him that's threatening to start hating on Thor a second time, but he _can't_ land himself in that hole, because if he did, he'd end up bringing both he and his brother back to the same horrible state they were in when they first became surprise roommates in the long run, and, in a more immediate sense, he'd do _exactly_ what he's trying not to and start crying hysterically – which brings him to yet _another_ train of thought:

Thor is the only person who can make him scream-and-shout, bucketfuls of tears, _I want to destroy everything beautiful and innocent in the world and I'm seriously considering suicide_ sort of cry. Don't get me wrong – people like Steve and Freyr and Odin have definitely made Loki shed quite a few tears before, and he's cried _for_ (not _about_) Tony countless times, but his brother is virtually the sole human being that can have him instantly out of control and wanting to _end_ to some extent, and right now, that he's even _acknowledging_ this, that today happened and that Thor is living with him and that he won't _stop_ living with him for an indefinite amount of time and that the man's presence is restricting in all the ways that matter (because Loki can't dress the way he wants to without getting an odd look or two from Thor, and he can't paint his nails without being called '_gay_' or '_girly_' or a '_faggot_' or any variation of '_effeminate homosexual_', and he can't count on having his own goddamn house to himself when there are four dwarves and a football princess _constantly _in it, and he can't carry on with Tony in the way he'd honest to God _adore_ to lest he stay with the man for a week or so and return home to find everything _destroyed_, and he can't risk upsetting Thor too much with his fucking _personality_ or else he might end up getting trashed or turn into a villain or get in trouble with his parents) and that people think that because Thor lives with him, they're magically best friends again and that he _cannot_ remove his brother from his home without angering Frigga, Odin, possibly Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif, probably Thor, and most certainly _himself_, and that he can't even be wholly comfortable with having his boyfriend spend the day or the night or the week or the _month_ with him because Thor wants to _kill_ the man and that the very reason why Tony and he got as close as they did in the first fucking place is basically _Thor_ and that nearly every facet of his whole entire _life _– whether it pertains to his family, his education, his love life, his social life, his innermost thoughts and feelings, his health, his self-image, even his motherfucking _job_ (no thanks to that visit Thor pain him a couple weeks ago) – has been or is being affected by _Thor_ in some way – _that_ is making Loki have an anxiety attack, making him consider everything about his existence in an extremely negative light, because _oh my __**God**_, his world is so saturated in _Thor_ that it's disgusting.

Honestly, a realization like this wouldn't be freaking Loki out so badly if only he was having it under different, brighter, not quite as sprained and not nearly as stressful circumstances, but alas – he has a headache now and Tony is not in bed with him and Thor is simultaneously destroying his life as well as making it an event he's going to look back on and say he_ survived_ it. Less than gracefully, yes, and it's not like '_survived_' is the greatest way to describe your living experience, but hopefully, you get the picture I'm trying to paint.

Loki is counting down from one-hundred and letting his mind revolve around the ice numbing his knee into near-total deadness when Tony slips into the room, clad in pajamas and hair a wild mess atop his head. Fenrir scrambles off of the bed as soon as he enters, and when Loki tears his eyes away from the ceiling and looks down, he's greeted with the sight of his boyfriend being backed into the door behind him by his darling husky.

"Hey, you," Tony laughs, scratching his fingernails against Fenrir's head and rubbing his hand down the back of the dog's neck when he pushes his muzzle into his palm. He glances up at Loki a moment later, this semi-surprised, somewhat perplexed expression quickly dominating his features once he does, and before Loki can compose his thoughts enough to question the look, Tony says, "You're still awake," like he was totally expecting otherwise.

All Loki can manage is a soft, sarcastic, "I concur." He can't even conjure up a snarky smile to go along with his words.

Tony smirks, amused, casually pulling away from Fenrir, dumping his dirty clothes in the laundry pile by the door, and asking, "How aren't you dead-fucking-tired right now?"

"I _am_ dead-fucking tired," Loki sighs, his eyes following Tony as he walks around to the side of the bed and plops down on the edge of the mattress. A small, nearly imperceptible smidgen of heat pools in his belly when the hem of Tony's tank top rides up his back, and his voice is just the slightest bit throaty when he adds, "I was waiting for you."

"Why?" Tony chuckles. He swings his legs over and onto the bed and sidles up to Loki, the tiniest and most devious of smiles plastered on his face as he jests, "Couldn't sleep without me?"

Loki swallows thickly, meeting Tony's gaze only a little uneasily. "No," he replies, "I actually couldn't."

Tony's expression gradually sobers into something tinged with concern before suddenly growing tight with alarm, and then – completely out of the blue and much to Loki's surprise – "Are you shaking?"

And _what do you know?_, he _is_ shaking. Not so much that you could pick it up instantly, but if you're sitting as close to him as Tony is and you're practically _employed_ to detect things like this, you'd be able to notice the tiny tremors running along Loki's skin, be able to see the way his lips quiver whenever he isn't speaking, and _oh_, let's not neglect to mention the fact that Loki is strangely and unbearably breathless, enough that the supposedly simple task of _talking_ is _that_ much harder than it would normally be for him. All this is purely symptomatic of the anxiety attack Loki was trying to _stop_ himself from having before Tony arrived. Look how successfully _that_ turned out.

"Oops?" Loki laughs, flashing Tony a half-forced bone of a smile in hopes that the man will miraculously forget about the distress that's obviously written all over his demeanor and do something ridiculously sweet like kiss his eyelids or hold his hand or something.

But because this is _Tony_ he's dealing with, instead of getting what he wants, he's rewarded with a faceful of scowling, worried boyfriend and an earful of '_What's wrong?_' and '_What happened?_' and '_Don't tell me it's nothing_'.

"Please, Tony, I'm _alright_," Loki contends, just this shy of desperate. Quiet, unwilling hisses and groans escape him as he turns onto his side, extra-careful not to disturb his knee too horrifically, and he wraps a grounding, beseeching hand around Tony's forearm, says, "I'm just a little anxious right now."

"Baby, if you're legitimately _shaking_, you're _not_ '_just a little anxious_'," Tony argues, but before he can start on his hour-long tangent about why Loki isn't okay (a fact he's already well aware of, thanks) and why he should start talking before he has a nervous breakdown or some sort of psychiatric episode and why he doesn't need to hide from him and all that beautiful, _we're in a relationship so we need to be open with each other to a sickeningly ostentatious extent_ bullshit, Loki just lays his head against Tony's chest and curls up there, unassuming and without pretense and so reflexively you'd think he did it all the time.

(And just so you know, Loki _doesn't_ do that all the time. Sure, he can be just as touchy-feely-huggy-squeezy as he can be with Tony, but he seldom _ever_ puts himself in a vulnerable position with the man, he'd much rather drill a screw through his foot than make it apparent that not only does he need Tony's support, but that he needs his comfort, or his love, or his _hold me and make me feel safe_ and not his _tell me something heartfelt and important_ or his _show me how much you care by fighting for me_. There's a world of difference between the three, I assure you.)

"Please," he repeats, softer, more weary this time. He draws his fingertip in small, idle circles along Tony's breast, listening to the sound of the man's heavy, solid heartbeat and the air working in and out of his lungs, and for a moment, he imagines that it must sound like a hurricane from inside a human ribcage.

Tony goes still at that, and even though Loki isn't looking at his face, he knows that there are two dark, uncertain eyes glued to the top of his head right now, and he knows that Tony wants so badly to _physically remove_ all the hurt and the anger and the fear inside him, and he knows that he's probably breaking Tony's heart in a way that the man won't notice until he thinks about it one day when he's not there to make eyes at him and touch him and be all pacifying and wistful and somehow both Tony's most and least favorite thing all at once, and he knows he kind of hates himself for doing that, but more than anything, he knows that Tony _still_ smells like Axe and rain and tobacco and motor oil, and he's not having an anxiety attack anymore, and he's not thinking anymore, and he can probably go to sleep now.

"I promise I'm not going to be upset about it in the morning," Loki adds, raising his head to look at Tony. He waits, patient and silent, for Tony to _stop_ looking at him like he's on the verge of shattering like glass on cement, for Tony to let out a low, brief sigh and wrap an arm around his back and breathe, "What am I going to do with you?"

"Kiss me, maybe?" Loki teases, his voice barely even a whisper. Tony's mouth curves into this wide, _gorgeously_ genuine smile almost immediately after he says that, and he leans forward to lock him in a long, breathtaking slick of a kiss, all lips and teeth and tongue and heat, and if Loki weren't exhausted and his leg wasn't out of commission and Fenrir wasn't _right fucking there_, nosing at the edge of the mattress like an inquisitive child, he'd be _more than_ all over his boyfriend right now and caution would be a foreign, trivial concept to the both of them.

For now, though, he lets himself be content with the slightly damp kisses Tony is trailing up the side of his face, wraps his arms tight around the man's torso and shivers when Tony's fingers push through the hair at the nape of his neck and closes his eyes tightly shut until he doesn't need to try so hard to keep them closed and _listens_ for it, hangs onto the very precipice of consciousness until he hears exactly what he's waiting for, almost like Tony's forgotten to say it up until this very moment – "Goodnight, turtledove."

* * *

**Tada!**

**Now is around the time that I usually do my super-cool, super-derpy shout outs, so:**

**- Paula, who, again, is one of my best friends and favorite people and everything sweet and light and wonderful in the world – I love you a lot and you've done more for me than I could ever ask for and more for me than **_**anybody **_**has in the relatively brief time we've known each other and I could gush about you forever but instead I'm just going to give you these forty-three pages worth of nonsense. Happy birthday, my dearest – you're absolutely mathematical.**

**- Heather, who pretty much **_**is**_** my best friend – I just adore the hell out of you and I can't even imagine where I'd be without you and you're my favie and I literally **_**cannot **_**when I think about how much I love you and how much you've given me and you're basically the greatest person ever.**

**- Isabella, who's been the sweetest thing and makes me irrationally and ecstatically happy every time she talks to me – I can't thank you enough for your enthusiasm and your adorableness and the fact that you exist in my life. Lots of hugs and kisses to you.**

**- Bailee, who is absolutely, positively, wonderfully awesome and absolutely, positively, wonderfully wonderful – I'm really, **_**really**_** happy you came and talked to me and you make me ridiculously incoherent and you're so funny and kind and one of my favorite people to talk to and I'd squeeze the hell out of you if it were physically possible.**

**- Nena, who is also unbelievably sweet and adorable and the Piplup to my Pikachu – I kind of adore you **_**a lot**_** and you're so cute and supportive and **_**agh**_**, you really deserve more than just a silly shout out at the bottom of a chapter, so expect something sweet and gift-y as soon as I have the time to sit down and draw you something proper.**

**Uhm, I wanted to point out that even though I didn't give a lot of information about Loki's best friend in high school besides the fact that she killed herself, in my head, she's Sigyn. I really wanted her to be Amora or something, but I have plans for her to appear in the future, so Sigyn it is (also, I don't feel like Amora would do such a thing). Also, if this chapter is a complete clusterfuck, I'm really sorry and you're more than free to help me out by pointing out a grammar or continuity mistake. **_**Also**_**, this is the first of two parts, so the next chapter is going to be a continuation of this.**

**Catch you all on the flip side. c:**

**- Gabi.**


	20. Squares, Part II

**Title: **Squares, Part II.

**Rating: **M for language and sexy stuff.

**Characters:** Loki, Thor, Tony Stark, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun.

**Summary: **The one good thing that's come of Thor's behavior is security, believe it or not, because if Loki isn't even one bit sure how the circumstances of a situation will turn out, he _at least_ knows for certain that he can rely on his brother to be unreliable. Loki-centric, part of the Brothers!verse.  
**AN: **First of all, I want to apologize a thousand times for taking _ten months_ to get this up. By the time you finish reading this, I should have a post on my Tumblr explaining myself, so I would definitely love it if you guys could check that out before you start stoning me (my url is theatrhythmss and the post should be under my '_Brothers_' tag).

Secondly, there are several references to video games such as _Heavy Rain_, _Final Fantasy X_, _Final Fantasy VII_, and _Pokémon_ throughout this whole thing, and you might not get them if you haven't played the games or if you aren't familiar with their stories/characters. I kind of had a nerdgasm all over this chapter.

Thirdly, this chapter is for Len, Nat, Sydney, Kate, and Arlet.

For this chapter, I recommend these songs: _Somedays_, Regina Spektor; _Forest Gump_, Frank Ocean; _Someday_, The Strokes (for the record, this song is almost _too_ fitting of Loki and Thor's relationship in this verse).

* * *

He's not going to change. No matter how many moments of weakness or ill-judgment Loki finds himself having – during which he begins to think that _yeah, maybe he __**has**__ matured a little bit_ – Thor will _not_ change. It'd be a miracle for him to, and anyone who says he's going to or already has is a fucking moron.

And you know, when Loki has time to think about it really hard (he's been finding himself with quite _a lot_ of that such time lately, no thanks to his bane of an injury), he realizes that Thor hasn't changed _at all_ since he turned fifteen years-old. There's virtually _nothing_ outside of his physicality that distinguishes him from the teenager he once was, and Loki almost feels _guilty_ for resenting his brother so when in all actuality, the man is just a child in a body that's much too old for him.

Loki has taken to compiling a list of reasons why Thor has aged in a vacuum for the past seven years or so, a list that includes detailed, completely and ridiculously truthful entries such as:

He refuses to eat Rice Crispies and asparagus.

He believes that because he listens to the type of music he does (Aerosmith and Kanye West, for the record), he is a deep, emotional human being. He said so himself.

Everybody is a 'bro' or a 'chick' to him, including Frigga and Odin (who have been dubbed as '_momchick_' and '_dadbro_').

He doesn't understand his religion as much as he probably should if he's going to designate it as his spiritual views on Facebook and wear it like an armor of righteousness.

He couldn't type or text _literately_ if his life depended on it, and he has to get Steve to revise all of his assignments before he turns them in.

Everything is a parade, a show, or a spectacle to him, even if it's less than positive.

He is so one-track minded it's insane.

He is incapable of speaking at a normal volume.

He doesn't know how to fold socks.

He _also_ doesn't know how to cook anything more complex than a Pop-Tart. Even Velveeta macaroni cups are a challenge for him.

He likes to start conversations about absolutely nothing simply for the sake of talking (this baffles Loki the most, because – as mouthy as he can be – he will become legitimately and irrationally angry if he's forced to talk about something that has no intellectual or emotional value to him).

He is unable to feel more than one emotion at a time without giving up or getting frustrated, and such emotions are only defined by words like '_happy_', '_upset_', '_angry_', and '_hungry_'.

His favorite website is Urban Dictionary.

He can't read aloud without Loki wanting to kill himself.

He likes to ask Loki what the definition of certain words are.

He says 'no homo' a lot when he's around Steve or Clint.

He somehow manages to be both interested in sex and amused by it.

And let's not forget _this _gem:

The easiest way to pacify him is to give him food that is fried or is some sort of variation on pizza.

All this might come off as amusing to a bystander, but when you're forced to live with it every day, things go from being kind of funny to outrageously infuriating pretty damn fast. The one good thing that's come of Thor's behavior is security, believe it or not, because if Loki isn't even one bit sure how the circumstances of a situation will turn out, he _at least_ knows for certain that he can rely on his brother to be unreliable.

* * *

_**Friday, October 14**__**th**__** at 2:36 PM.**_

It's been raining nonstop since around four o'clock this morning, and frankly, Loki's had quite enough of the godawful weather that's been plaguing Sidney for what feels like an eternity. Under any other circumstances, he'd be in love with all the angel tears dropping out of the sky, but because such angel tears are both a) partly-responsible for his sprain, and b) making it _that_ much harder for him to get from place to place, he's taken to sitting around with a sour expression stuck on his face and his lips screwed tightly shut for the majority of the day.

Speaking of the day, shall I tell you how everything has gone up until this point?

_First_ – Loki awakes at four-oh-nine in the AM due to a rather loud, rather _frightening_ thunderclap. That such thunderclap (which could only be described as the kissing cousin of a fucking _gunshot_) results in him screaming himself – as well as Tony – out of the blissful void of sleep he'd been resting in, jumping about three inches off the mattress, and promptly falling completely out of bed.

_Then_ – Tony spends about twenty-five minutes lifting Loki back into bed, making sure his fibula isn't _broken_ or something (amidst Loki's frantic, hysterical cries of '_oh my fucking __**God**__, I broke my leg, I broke my leg, Tony, I broke my __**fucking**__ leg_'), replacing his icepack with a fresh, much less watery, much colder one, and kissing Loki's cheeks and wiping his tears and singing him nonsense songs and eventually just telling him to _shut the fuck up, babe_ until he manages to fall back asleep again.

_Then_ – Loki's alarm goes off at seven-forty-five, and Loki has to pester and bitch at Tony for eight minutes before the man finally gets his ass up (because '_I don't even wake up at __**eight**__ to go to class_'and '_No wonder you're so goddamn angry all the time – you don't get any sleep_' and '_It's Friday and you're injured – can't we just lie around all day?_').

_Then_ – Loki limps down the hallway to Thor's room and beats his crutch against the door until Thor roars at him. He decided the night before that there was no way in _hell_ he was going to waste his time and walk into his brother's bedroom when Sif is in there and they're both probably naked (he's had enough accidental sightings of partially-nude brothers and their partially-nude kind of-girlfriends this week to last him a lifetime).

_Then_ – After much debating and arguing about the timetable they're trying to work on, Tony persuades Loki into taking a quick shower with him. Things don't get nasty between them, mostly due to Loki's nonstop threatening ('_I'll cut your penis off, I swear_' and '_Do you __**want**__ me to kill you?_' being some of his more stellar lines).

_Then_ – Tony insists on buying Loki breakfast. When Loki makes it clear that he doesn't want to leave without making sure that Thor and Sif have something to eat, Tony reaches into the freezer, drops a box of _Eggo _waffles onto the dinner table, and calls it even.

_Then_ – Tony and Loki eat bacon, hash browns, and toast at Waffle House. This is uneventful for the most part, save for when Tony leans across the table to kiss the tip of Loki's nose and the waitress serving them nearly spills coffee all over the place as a result.

_Then_ – Tony drops Loki off at the 700 building in time for him to limp his way up the stairs, shuffle into Hell (also known as Dr. Doom's classroom), and plop down into his seat before he'd be considered tardy.

_Then_ – Loki has psychology class. Nobody bothers him today, and he gets to learn neat things about typology.

_Then_ – Tony picks Loki up and they buy brunch at McDonalds. Tony wants them to eat in the park, but because it won't stop raining, they end up parking outside of a Blockbuster and eating there. Tony lets Loki sync his iPod to his car and they listen to MGMT and Lana Del Rey all through their meal and on the way to Tony's house.

_Then_ – Loki waits in Tony's truck while the man goes into his house and shoves some more things for his two and a half week-stay into his messenger bag. He counts the raindrops sliding down the windshield to pass the time, and when Tony returns, he casually looks through everything he's retrieved (_Heavy Rain_, _Mass Effect_, _Dragon Age II_, and about ten other video games, memory cards, and zip drives being some of those such things).

_Then_ – Loki plays with Fenrir the best he can while unable to move (which basically means that he throws a rubber ball across the room and waits for the husky to bring it back to him) and watches Tony play _Heavy Rain_ for an hour and a half. When Loki threatens to fall asleep or kill himself out of boredom, Tony tries (and fails) to teach him how to play. This results in nothing but arguing.

_Then_ – Tony switches out _Heavy Rain_ for _Final Fantasy X_. He and Loki get along much better after this, and Thor doesn't come home throughout _any_ of this nonsense.

_Then_ – Tony takes Loki back to the 700 building so he can go to his sociology class. They kiss each other goodbye this time.

_Then_ – Loki takes an exam on _Stereotyping in Western Civilization_. He didn't get to study for it the night before (no thanks to his injury), but because he has near-eidetic memory, he ends up answering most of the questions with ease.

_Then_ – Tony picks him up again and takes him home. They get utterly soaked on their journeys to and from the car, and in the time it takes them to get from the university campus to the front of his house, Loki's mood gradually declines from **slightly bad** to **thoroughly disgusting**.

And here is about where we began.

Loki is sitting on the edge of his mattress, clad in a dark teal sweater, coal black skinny pants, and his favorite pair of Toms. His crutches are splayed across his lap, he's waiting for Tony to finish feeding Fenrir, and he is absolutely, positively _sopping_ wet and _freezing_ cold (and therefore a ray of fucking sunshine, as I'm sure you can probably imagine). Every thirty seconds or so, a droplet of rainwater slides off of the tip of his nose and drips into his lap, and _every __**single**__ time_ that happens, Loki prays to some higher power for death or pneumonia, because if he suffered from either of those two conditions, he'd have a pretty damn good excuse to hate everyone and stay in bed all day and not talk to anybody for a week or two.

When Tony _finally_ manages to plant his feet on the near side of his bedroom doorway again, the man stops and goes still and almost shocked as soon as he sees the state Loki's in – a reaction that's actually kind of _ridiculous_ when he's just as wet and uncomfortable as his darker counterpart. Only a second before his stare becomes creepy, disconcerting, or annoying does he start to laugh, his features relaxing into this amused, silly grin that Loki wants nothing more than to slap or punch right off of his face simply because it's an expression of happiness (and he's nowhere_ close _to feeling any such emotion).

"What's so humorous?" Loki asks, shivering rather bodily and leveling a primitive glare at his boyfriend.

Tony easily eliminates the distance between them, then, walks forward until he's looming over Loki in that stupidly insolent, smug-asshole sort of way he has. He keeps on with his chuckling and his smiling and his being all outrageously tickled and shit and replies, "Just you."

As I'm certain you could infer based on prior experiences and conversations as well the very _core_ of his personality (one which he shares with a feral cat, Napoleon Bonaparte, and a goddamn hydrogen bomb), an answer like that rubs Loki _completely_ the wrong way (even if it really isn't _that_ serious), and – true to his nature – he isn't at all shy to make his displeasure apparent.

"I'm so _delighted_ that you find my misery comical," Loki snaps, the scowl plastered across his face darkening exponentially when Tony's laughter intensifies at his remark. He narrows his eyes as Tony squats down in front of him, flinches and tenses when the man reaches behind his head and cups the nape of his neck in his hands, his fingers combing through the dripping, curly hair there and his face softening the tiniest bit.

"You've been grumpy today," Tony notes, and he says so in a way that isn't disappointed or upset or vexed, but simply observant and maybe even a little _pleased_. Unsurprisingly, Loki sinks further into the depths of irritation.

"I've got a sprained knee and every time I walk outside, I feel like I'm in a gigantic car wash," Loki huffs, cocking his head to the side in an extraordinarily bitchy fashion and giving Tony a sharp, wry little grimace. "I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be anything _but_ grumpy."

"Well, it's a Friday?" Tony offers with a sheepish smile, rubbing the pads of his fingers into the hollow at the base of Loki's skull. He scoots forward ever so slightly, chops about an inch and a half off the space between their noses and assaults Loki with the most beseeching pair of eyes of all _time_ even as the man glowers at him, unrelenting and stubbornly determined. "And you totally kicked Seymour's ass and didn't get Madison drilled to death?"

"I suppose I forgot to get _excited_, or whatever any other normal person would do," Loki grumbles. He lowers his eyes to the crutches in his lap when Tony inches towards him again, when the man brings them close enough together that he can feel breath on his lips if he pays attention, that he can smell tobacco and peppermint and consciously think '_holy fucking shit_' the moment he does (because if _anything _has the miraculous, contradictory ability to turn him on and calm him down in tandem, it's the combination of cigarettes and mint he can smell and taste in and on Tony's mouth when they're this near to each other).

"_I'm_ here," Tony points out somewhat arrogantly, tilting his head downwards in an attempt to capture Loki's gaze again. He grins a touch when Loki submits to his efforts, adds, "_That_ usually has you in a good mood."

Loki blinks at that, his expression growing the slightest bit harder in only a second's time. Coldly and without more than a mere moment of thought, he counters, "Be here when I'm not soaked to the bone, physically incapacitated, thoroughly _exhausted_, and raising a twenty-one year-old blockhead, and I _might_ be feeling a little decent."

If you've been getting negative vibes from this whole conversation as well as the recounting of the day that preceded it, you're reading everything exactly the way you should be and it'd be best if you kept on doing that. In all actuality, Loki and Tony have been arguing like this all day long, and Loki is pretty sure that the only reason why Tony hasn't walked out on him is the fact that doing so would mean leaving responsibility for his recuperation to Thor, therefore making his recovery _thousands_ of times more difficult, therefore obliterating a lot of the trust Loki has for Tony, therefore causing him to act extraordinarily ugly and callous to the man, therefore causing them to fight like dogs, therefore causing them to start hating each other, therefore causing them to undergo a nasty, awful break up, and _that_, my friends, is extravagant, unnecessary, and the last thing _either_ of them want.

That being said, today has been pretty damn difficult despite that they ate a nice breakfast and that they kissed each other goodbye and that Thor's presence hasn't really made a mark on anything that's transpired so far, and to be completely and brutally honest, all of that probably has _a lot_ to do _with_ the overbearing stressfulness of everything. _Why_, you ask?

Two words – _sexual tension_.

Remember last night, when Loki and Tony were literally _centimeters_ away from a full-blown make-out session? Or perhaps that episode in the hospital, where the only things stopping them from just _going_ at each other were their surroundings, Loki's injury, and Thor's being practically _right_ outside the door? _Loki_ does, and the fact that not only is his _brother_ preventing he and Tony from carrying on the way they wish to – but his very own _body_ is as well – accounts for a grand deal of the anger and exasperation he's been feeling today, and even though Tony is definitely faring better on the outside, he _knows_ that he's frustrated too simply by the way the man's looking at him and touching him and acting like if they're together and they're at least semi-alone and they're _not_ physically contacting each other in some way, they're _sinning_. Makes sense, right?

Tony gives him a long, exceedingly thirsty look, holds his stare until the air between them is hot and thick and _muggy_ enough to cut with a butter knife, and then – like he isn't totally _undressing Loki with his __**eyes**_ and being just as suggestive and sultry as he can be – says, "Forget about Thor."

For the record, _anything_ relating to Thor is something Loki considers to be the exact opposite of sexy or appealing, and Tony's very mention of the man's name does quite a bit to turn him off.

But rather than explicitly stating that, Loki scowls at the man, his voice strident and sharp when he replies, "I _can't_, Tony! You'd think I'd have done that already if I could, wouldn't you?"

"You're not listening to me," Tony cuts in before Loki can further his argument, moving his hands to rest against Loki's sides and squeezing the muscle there gently – both to force him to relax and to make him shut up and heed his words for once. He tilts his head into Loki's, lets their noses bump together as he repeats himself with a firmer, weightier, "_Forget_ about Thor. Just try to, alright? Forget about your knee, too."

"You make it sound so easy," Loki sulks, rolling his eyes even as Tony nuzzles into the hollow beneath his cheekbones, even as the man winds his arms tight around his middle and feathers kisses over the skin at the corner of his mouth like he just might disappear if he isn't more careful.

"It _will_ be easy," Tony replies just a little too matter-of-factly, leaning back to look Loki in the face again and smirking a bit. "I'm gonna help you."

Loki chooses not to respond to that verbally – mostly because he isn't sure how flirtatious that comment was supposed to be, if it was supposed to be flirtatious _at all_ – instead opting to eye Tony in a way that could be hesitant or skeptical or curious depending on how the man decides to interpret his expression. Tony's smile only widens in response, quickly turns into one of those stupidly magnetic, _makes you want to giggle hysterically for eleven freaking years for some odd reason_ grins that crinkle the skin around his eyes and overtake his whole face in the very best – if somewhat insincere – of ways.

"Look, I promise if you haven't forgotten about Thor or your knee in fifteen minutes, I'll, uhm…" Tony starts to say, trailing off indecisively and eventually furrowing his brow in thought when he finds himself devoid of a bargaining chip. The funniest thing about his uncertainty is the fact that it's smearing itself all across his features like war paint, the fact that it's so hilariously and blatantly _obvious_ in his eyes, which he keeps locked on Loki's even after he's reached the most awkward and ironic and telling impasse of all _time_, and it's all Loki can do to not start laughing or betray his amusement beyond the infinitesimal twitching his lips are doing of their own accord and the nearly imperceptible glint of delight in his gaze.

"_You'll?_" he pushes in a deliberately aggravating manner, shivering again with cold.

"Shit, what _don't _I do for you?" Tony laughs, his words lacking any of the heat Loki expected they'd have. They make him frown regardless, though, because _really_ – what _doesn't _Tony do for him? (That such a question has to be asked in the first place is almost _depressing_, truth be told.)

"You don't have to promise me anything," Loki says, his gaze dropping down to his lap once more. He doesn't have much time to mope, however, because almost as soon as he breaks eye contact with Tony, the man is brushing his lips against his cheek again, kissing him softly and pulling him closer and squeezing him with just enough pressure to make him the tiniest, most wonderful bit uncomfortable.

"It won't matter either way," Tony replies, nuzzling his nose with a small, silly smile. "I'll have you forgetting about everything in _much_ less than fifteen minutes."

Loki groans quietly when Tony's mouth finally finds his, when the man unceremoniously knocks his crutches out of his lap and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, hungry and possessive and assertive and _oh_ – Loki _knows_ how this is going to go, knows as soon as Tony has him breathless and trapped in his arms that he's _going_ to have him in whatever way he wishes, knee sprained or not. And honestly, he doesn't mind that one bit.

(FYI: Later on, when their relationship has progressed beyond the initial _oh my god we're just getting together and everything is all so very new and beautiful and if we aren't moving fast we aren't moving at all and hey what are those things people call 'caution' and 'forethought' and good old-fashioned 'consideration'? _phase it's in now, the vaguely disproportionate amount of dominance between them might become an actual issue, but for now, the only thing that concerns them is the fact that they have skin and it's being touched at the moment.)

"How much less are we talking?" Loki pants once Tony breaks their kiss long enough for him to breathe and get a word or two out. He hisses when Tony gently nudges his thighs open, gets on his knees to crowd between them, and pushes his hands up and under the front of his sweater to palm at the damp, goosebumped skin there, his thumbs rubbing minute, inflamed little circles into his ribs.

"Give me like, five minutes," is Tony's cheeky, purring answer. The pad of his middle finger flicks over Loki's right nipple as he says that, and when Loki lets out a faint, uncontrolled sigh of pleasure and frustration in response to the gesture, this incredibly amused grin nearly splits Tony's face in two, and he chuckles, "Let's get these wet clothes off of you, hm?"

Loki barely has time to nod his assent before Tony is hurriedly peeling his sweater off of him, throwing it in the same general direction his crutches went in, and catching him by the mouth again, kissing him sloppily in his haste. Thoughts jumbled and quickly growing distant and vague, Loki parts his lips against the kiss and slips his arms around Tony's neck, his hands crawling underneath the back of the man's leather jacket and his fingers scratching at his shoulder blades through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Tony's palms stay firmly wrapped around Loki's hips until he does that, and – refusing to pull away even the tiniest bit – he releases Loki only long enough so that he can shrug his jacket off and kick it to the side, where it's forgotten along with the rest of their clothes.

As soon as that thick, obtrusive leather barrier doesn't exist between the two of them anymore, Loki seeks out the hem of Tony's shirt and lets his fingertips dawdle just beneath it, and that small iota of teasing is the most he has the brainpower to do when Tony has him imprisoned half-against, half-beneath him, when if the man leaned forward only the slightest bit more, he'd be completely horizontal, when Tony's tongue is mapping the inside of his mouth so goddamn _thoroughly_ and when his hips are grinding into his, easy and powerful and downright _torturous_, and he's not nearly as chilly as he was before anymore, and if he _is_, he can hardly _begin_ to tell the difference between what's he's aware of and what he isn't, because Tony is _everywhere_ all at once and his body is doing that wonderful space-heating thing it does and _there_ – his back is hitting the mattress, now, and Tony is laying over him and Loki is bringing his hands up to twist his fingers into the back of his shirt and _cling_ to the man, trying as best as he can to keep him where he is, pressed close and impossibly warm and impossibly beautiful and impossibly _present_.

But of course, Tony _has_ to pull away as soon as Loki does that, and Loki is left gasping and red-lipped and tense and shivering and suddenly, horrifically _cold_ for the five unbearable seconds it takes the man to reach behind his shoulder and pull his t-shirt off, his head emerging haloed with a mess of curly, dark brown hair and his palms finding the spaces beside Loki's shoulders as soon as they're free. Tony grins down at Loki, then, grins and chuckles and cranes his neck to plant a slow, openmouthed kiss on the skin just beneath his lower lip, and even though Loki is sighing his contentment into the curve of Tony's jaw, even though he's _squeezing_ it into the muscles of the man's back, he's a little more than confused with his oddly giddy demeanor, and he doesn't hesitate to put a voice to that confusion with a quiet, breathless, "Why're you laughing?"

Instead of answering his question immediately, Tony goes on beaming, dragging his lips over the edge of Loki's chin and sealing them over the swell of his Adam's apple and _laughing_ some more, all low and honeyed and so husky Loki feels feverish, and when he inadvertently tickles Loki's skin with the vibrations he's kissing into it, Loki ends up smiling and laughing, too.

Then Tony leans back to regard Loki fully, practically panting with jubilation and grinning like a fool as he replies, "Because I'm happy."

Loki's heart leaps at that (mainly due to the fact that Tony is _rarely _– if _ever_ – happy enough to explicitly state that he is), and without a second thought, he moves his hands to bracket Tony's jaws, clumsily managing to be affectionate but not _obviously_ overjoyed. Tony readily leans into his touch, nearly _purring_ when he adds, "Because I love you."

"Tony…" Loki starts to say, his sentence cut short and forced to trail off into this nothing of a moan when his boyfriend turns his head to press a damp kiss to his palm, skates his fingers down his stomach and hooks them in his waistband and _tugs_.

"Because I'm about to go to town on you, and this time, I'm not dreaming," Tony croons, leaning back even further – almost out of Loki's reach – and easily prying the fly of Loki's pants open. Loki flushes at the mental image those words conjure, skin prickling with anticipation and breath quickly growing short, and all he can do is squirm beneath Tony and try not to disturb his knee as the man ducks his head low to mouth his way down his neck, his chest, his abdomen (his _scar_), and in a matter of _seconds_, every nerve in his body and everything in his world is revolving around the wet slick of a kiss Tony is licking over his navel, hot and moist and too sensual for words, and he's letting out these soft, ridiculous little whines and tangling his fingers in Tony's habitually unkempt hair and curling up into the man and _shit_, he just bent his leg, and that _really_ fucking hurts, and that would be him letting out a heavy, gasping, _painful_ moan, now.

"Careful," Tony hums, pausing in his ministrations to look up at Loki's uncomfortable, pinched expression. With a brief, reassuring smile, he rocks back onto his heels, gently grabs Loki by the hips, and scoots him up so that his legs aren't hanging over the edge of the mattress anymore, rumpling the sheets below him and unfortunately eliciting another pained groan from the man when he does. Then he crawls between his thighs, runs his palms over the insides of them (and oh _Lord_, if that doesn't make Loki want to _scream_), grasps Loki's waistband once more, and asks, just this side of teasing, "Are you alright with me cutting these off of you, or…?"

"Just _take_ them off, please," Loki huffs, shaking his head dismissively and idly clawing at his bedsheets. He bucks his hips a bit for emphasis, watches the way Tony's lips twitch with amusement in response.

"It's going to hurt, you know," Tony notes, pulling Loki's pants down his hips even as he says so.

"I don't ca– _fuck…!_" Loki curses, that last expletive escaping him in a sharp, surprised yelp when Tony takes it upon himself to just _yank_ his goddamn pants over his knees (thanks very much, you _asshole_).

"Oops," Tony chuckles, every bit as devious and cheeky as he usually is. Loki aims a nasty, wounded scowl at the man.

"That hurt!" he cries, watching Tony indignantly as he slips his pants the rest of the way off, significantly more cautious and considerate this time around.

"I told you it would," is Tony's sassy retort. He tosses Loki's pants to the ground, wraps a gentle hand around the underside of the man's knee, and if doing so wouldn't put him in more stinging, seething, horrible-awful-really _bad_ pain than he's already in, Loki would probably jerk out of his boyfriend's grip just to be spiteful.

"You could have at least gone a little slower, or _warned_ me, or talked me through it or something," Loki complains, sitting up on his elbows so that he might look a tad more dignified or menacing (a feat that's kind of _impossible _to accomplish, considering his position, his injury, his lack of clothing, and the fact that he's still dripping with rain). He's more than ready to go on bitching (and why _wouldn't_ he be, being _Loki?_), but – mostly because Tony is exceptional at picking up on his mood and even _better_ at improving it – his desire to spark yet _another_ pointless argument rapidly diminishes when Tony moves to drop a careful kiss on the top of his knee, lets his lips linger there until Loki's breathing has decelerated several paces and he's tantamount to a lump of Jell-O beneath him.

"I'm sorry," Tony mumbles against his skin, gazing at Loki with his terribly dark, terribly thirsty eyes. He skims his palm down to the juncture of Loki's femur and pelvis, trails his mouth along the inside of his leg until he trembles, and then – like he's programmed to make Loki totally lose his shit at all costs – _bites_ him, slow and deliberate and on the soft, tender skin at the very middle of his thigh, and Loki has never once imagined anyone putting their teeth right _there_, but now that Tony _just fucking __**did**_, he thinks that he might be _dying_ or something because it sounds like his heart is in his ears and he feels a little woozy and he just forgot what _oxygen _is and there's something sweet and unbearable boiling in the pit of his stomach and his underwear just got _a lot_ tighter than it was only seconds ago and Tony's just _watching_ him while he has this beauty of a breakdown, all wolfish and hungry and like he'd eat him up if he could, and then man asks him, "Do you forgive me?", and under most circumstances, Loki will swear up and down to Jesus Christ _himself_ that Tony isn't _that_ sexy, but at the moment, he most certainly _is_.

"Yeah, sure," is Loki's spectacularly dumb, bewildered response. He swallows around the arousal constricting his throat, tries to inhale a deep, easy breath, but Tony seems determined to keep him from, I don't know, _breathing correctly?_, because without warning, he's ducking his head and wrapping his mouth around Loki's erection through his underwear, and he really, _really_ likes to do that, you know, and Loki doesn't know what the _fuck_ just came out of him, but it sounded a whole lot like a sob, and his back is arching off of the mattress and his head is falling back and he's bent his _leg_ again, _**goddammit**_, but that doesn't matter when Tony is sliding his tongue down and pushing it against his perineum through about three millimeters' width of cotton.

"_Careful_," Tony echoes, and he says that with his mouth _still_ pressed against Loki's crotch, so as a result, Loki ends up _feeling_ the word more than he ends up hearing it, and oh _God_ do those two tiny syllables feel _marvelous_ when they're wet and they're vibrating and they're punctuated with just a bit of suction, and Loki might actually start _purring_ if Tony keeps on doing that, and he's suddenly hit with the most _ridiculous _thought to have at a time like this – what if this is how they had _all_ their conversations? – but before he can go completely insane with lust, Tony is raising his head and catching him off guard for the umpteenth time in less than _five minutes_ by hooking his thumbs in his briefs, tugging them over his hips, and slipping them off of him without an atom of trouble, and then Loki is exposed and flushed and hard and shivering again, and for some reason, this is always the _worst_ part to him – letting Tony see him naked – and when he's naked, he can't say '_no_' and he can't stop moving and he becomes so pliable and wanton and unusually emotional (and by _unusual_, I mean _much_, _**much**_ _more than he typically is_) and of course, his _scar_ is showing, and his scar has to be the ugliest, most loathsome thing on his entire fucking body, and only the fact that Tony likes to pay a little extra attention to it with his fingers and his lips makes it a somewhat bearable sight to behold in the mirror, but he's _naked_ and the lamp is on and Tony's eyes are focused solely on him, and such a situation never fails to psych the hell out of him.

Ironically, Loki's pretty sure that Tony likes him best this way – not because he's anxious, and not even so much because he's nude (and apparently really sexy, or whatever), but because he's _vulnerable_, and Tony has a serious thing about him being open and unguarded and uncontrolled and completely accessible to him, and now that he's consciously realizing that, it makes so much _sense_ to Loki why Tony always tries so hard to just _destroy_ him when they're having sex. That knowledge doesn't stop him from getting apprehensive, though, and he's not sure if or when it ever will.

Tony starts to shake his head a bit after he's swept his eyes over Loki's body a fourth time, and then this dazed, vaguely pleased smile stretches itself across his face, ambiguous and without any clear pretense, but before Loki can get too nervous about the way the man is looking at him (which is akin to the way someone would stare at the sea and dream of drowning in it), he chuckles, "You don't even know how beautiful you are, do you?"

And Loki can't help but begin to throw a wall up against that comment, being just as defensive and as downright _awkward_ as he is, but he can't really shut himself off too much when Tony is crawling up his body, pushing his thighs apart until they're spread as far as is comfortable to him, and locking him in a firm, breathtaking kiss, and when Loki pulls away for air, Tony is quick to follow him and catch him by the mouth again, and Loki is wrapping his arms around the man's neck and letting him ease him down onto the mattress and parting his lips so that he can push his tongue against Tony's, and _here_ – this is _easy_, just _kissing_, and he can hang onto Tony and listen to the man's heavy, languid breathing and the feeling of their tongues sliding together and their lips and teeth catching against each other is flawless in its slipperiness and its slowness and its roughness and occasional inelegance and he's _okay_ with losing himself in this because kissing Tony is one of the best ways he can think of passing the time and it's not like he's ever going to fall apart while he's doing it, but then Tony is curling his hand around his dick and he's bent his leg yet _again_ and _oh, __**yeah**_, he can feel himself collapsing with every flick of his boyfriend's thumb, every slow, careful pump on his shaft and every fleeting nip Tony takes at his bottom lip.

"Oh, _fuck_," Loki curses, the words coming out of him in the form of low, choked, breathless sobs. They end up getting lost in Tony's mouth, licked right off of his tongue and smeared along the seam of his lips, and Loki can't see the man's face or anything, but he's pretty sure that Tony is smiling right now.

"There we are," Tony drawls, trailing his lips down to Loki's jawline so that he can suck these wonderful, moist little kisses to the skin there and murmuring, "_God_, you're so fucking _perfect_," like he's in total awe of Loki's very _existence_ and his _own_ existence and their _shared_ existence and the miracle that is their ending up together. He keeps on jacking Loki off even as he speaks, but as soon as it becomes uncomfortably apparent that there isn't anything easing the friction between his palm and Loki's cock, he's forced to draw away from the man so that he can reach into his nightstand and grab the tube of KY there. Loki doesn't hesitate to seize the opportunity to unfasten Tony's jeans while he's distracted, and he manages to get the man's waistband under his ass before Tony pushes his hands away and finishes the job himself, shedding both his pants and his underwear in one go. Unsurprisingly, Tony's just as aroused as he is (and that alone just goes to show that Tony really _does_ have a thing about bringing him to this point).

"I'm gonna try something, okay?" Tony huffs, neglecting to wait for Loki to reply before he's coating his fingers with lube and taking Loki's dick in his palm again, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the head and letting out a pleased sigh when Loki moans in response, arches up into his hand as much as he's able to and digs his fingernails into the sheets beneath him in his desperation, and by now, Loki isn't _distressed_ anymore – he's just fucking _urgent_, and that's probably because he can't afford to fuss over all the trivial implications of being naked when Tony has his hands on him.

And then, when Loki is panting and whining with need and barely capable of coherence, Tony slicks himself up, hooks Loki's uninjured leg around his waist, aligns their cocks together, and starts rocking their hips into each other to an easy, mostly inaudible beat, and even though it's frustrating as all _hell_ that he can barely move without Tony moving him first and even though his knee is halfway to _screaming_ at him, Loki is falling apart at the seams in the very _best_ of ways and every rough inhale and exhale that passes between Tony's lips and every murmur of a groan that escapes him and every sharp snap of their hips is simultaneously the most obscene and beautiful thing Loki's ever heard, and as Tony begins to lose his rhythm, he braces his hands against the mattress, plants them in the spaces on either side of Loki's head, and leans down to kiss a sloppy, wet line from his bottom lip to his Adam's apple, and Loki is winding his arms around the man again and tangling his digits in his hair and breathing unadulterated ecstasy against Tony's temple, and at this point, he's hardly making a sound anymore even though his mouth is hanging open and he's so _fucking __**close**_, and Tony is laying over him like a too-possessive ocean trying in vain to keep the secret of sand – the water saying to the land that, '_you are not gold, but you belong to me_' – and he's rutting against him so erratically that Loki knows that he's close, too, and when that dawns on him, he whispers, "_Come here_," moves his hands to cup Tony's jaws and tilts his head up so that he's facing him, so that he can press their lips together and swallow the quiet little moans that are coming out of the man, and Tony is gasping against his mouth and spending himself all over his hip and Loki is thinking about how fucking _beautiful_ Tony is when he's not as cool and collected as he likes to be and how odd it is, that wonderful-awful feeling of resistance and the best-worst kind of tension that coils up tight in your belly before you go falling over the edge, and then his orgasm is slamming into him like a tidal wave, washing over him and ripping into him and dragging him almost completely away from the pain in his knee and from Tony's presence and from the light in the room and from the high, keening noise that's coming out of him, and _what do you know?_ – everything Tony told him to forget about is lightyears away, now.

Tony is shivering in Loki's arms, his forehead pressed against his and the tip of his nose brushing along the crest of his cheek. For a second, they're a little awkward and unmoving, Loki with his elbows bent at odd angles and Tony trapping Loki beneath his weight – and let's not forget to mention the mess of semen between them – but it doesn't take long for Tony to push himself up to give Loki some breathing room (as if Loki really _wants_ any), and when he does, he's struggling to catch his breath and gazing down at him the same way he did the first time they had sex – dazed and adoring and almost surprised, and Loki might think that his expression is funny if he were capable of paying more attention to it, if he weren't so weirdly disconnected from his senses.

"Loki…" Tony starts to say, and Loki mistakenly assumes that the man is going to ask him a question or actually tell him something before he's being kissed again, firmly and sweetly on the mouth, and he can't stop himself from letting out this helplessly pleased, helplessly _helpless_ humming sort of noise when Tony trails his lips across his left cheek and down to his jaw and the column of his throat, every kiss bruising and bittersweet. It's when he reaches his collarbone that Loki starts to realize that his bones are liquid for some reason, that there's an electric current thrumming through him, and that his groin is uncomfortably sticky, and while he feels like he could possibly be a _little_ grossed out by that, he isn't entirely sure at the moment.

Then Tony nuzzles at his neck, and Loki is only strong enough to squeeze the man for a second or two before he's pulling away to sit back on his haunches and observe the mess they've made (or take a good look at Loki; same difference). His lips quirk up into a smirk as he notes, almost sarcastically, "We didn't get anything on the sheets, thankfully."

Loki is sure that he's going to smile and laugh at that, but at the exact instant that he's preparing to do such a thing, his knee starts calling to him again, so instead of doing what he _thought_ he would, he ends up grimacing and letting out a sharp, pained groan that has Tony's features immediately contorting into something worried and confused.

"You okay, babe?" he asks, watching Loki anxiously. It occurs to Loki then – of all times, _then_ – that he's probably the center of Tony's attention a whole lot more than he actually realizes or appreciates.

"Mm-mnh," Loki replies with an infinitesimal shake of the head, and the seemingly unbearable inertia of that one action has his head lolling to the side and falling heavy against the mattress, and holy _shit_, he's not supposed to be _this_ weak after Tony's done all the work (except he _is_, no thanks to the busy day he's had). He makes a feeble gesture towards his leg and mumbles, "My knee," to clarify exactly what's bothering him.

"Oh, _shit_," Tony swears, and just like that, he's back to being Loki's big bad nurse again. Quickly and gingerly, he detangles himself from Loki and gets to his feet, and it takes Loki ten embarrassingly dim seconds to realize that _oh_ – Tony is probably going to get him some ice or something and he's not just standing up for no particular reason. Yeah. That makes sense.

As Tony wipes himself clean with his discarded t-shirt (and honestly, that's kind of _hilarious_ to behold), Loki attempts to reboot his central nervous system and regulate his breathing and stay awake long enough to at least watch Tony walk out of the room (because _yes_ – he's _still _exhausted, and that he was just steamrolled by an orgasm that could honestly be classified as a fucking _eight_ on the Richter scale doesn't help _at all_). When he regains enough control of his observational tools to realize that Tony is staring at him in all his naked, sweaty, semen-covered glory, he frowns a bit and blurts without an ounce of forethought, "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," Tony chuckles, snatching his boxers from the floor and making quick work of pulling them on.

"You _thought_ something," Loki grumbles, making to grasp the edge of his comforter and pull it over his lower half, never mind the fact that he'd probably end up wanting to destroy everything if he actually succeeded at covering himself and therefore dirtied his perfectly clean blanket.

(Un)Fortunately, Tony grabs his wrist before he can even get his fingers around his quilt, smirking down at him as he retorts, "_Yeah_, about how gorgeous you are." Then he manages the impossible and disgusts Loki while somehow also amusing him by leaning down and swiping his tongue over a smudge of ejaculate on his hip, and even though he probably only lapped up a _drop_ of it and even though it doesn't really surprise Loki that Tony would have a little semen in his mouth at least a few times in his life, there's no way to tell whose spunk he just _licked_ – as in, _put his fucking tongue on_ – belonged to, and it came off of_ Loki's hip_, and _why the __**fuck**__ did that even happen_, and now he's moving to kiss Loki and _oh my __**God**_, _he is_ _**not**__ going to put his mouth on Loki's_ if it's the last thing Loki's sure of before he dies from a lethal dose of a dangerous combination of embarrassment, exhaustion, and love.

"Oh, _ew!_" Loki cries, cringing away from Tony when the man lunges for his mouth and wrapping his hands around his shoulders without really trying to push him away.

"C'mere, silly," Tony laughs, caging Loki with his arms and chasing him with puckered, hungry lips, and for the record, he is _not_ trying to be creepy on purpose – he's just an eccentric asshole (an eccentric asshole that Loki utterly _adores_, but an eccentric asshole nonetheless).

Loki grabs Tony by the cheeks, then, holds him about an inch and a half away from his face and whines, "Tony, that's _gross!_"

Tony's expression turns impish at that, his eyebrows raising just a bit and his mouth curling into a tiny, wonderfully naughty smirk as he says, "Did you know that sugar makes up about seventy-percent of human semen?"

"Did you know that you're _fucking_ crazy?" Loki retorts, just this shy of hysterical (and please, don't be worried by this oh-so-sudden and _unexpected_ – _**ha**_ – shift in emotion, not after Loki's just had sex for the second time in three years with his favorite person in the world/BFFL and he's sort of beside himself as well as excruciatingly weary and he has a mental disorder and he's actually kind of crazy to be honest, and _congratulations_, reader – you've just been spoon-fed the critically acclaimed biography of Loki Skywalker).

"Only for you," is what Tony counters with, and if that isn't the cheesiest, mushiest, most delightful thing Loki's ever been told in his life, he doesn't know what is.

(And see, I'd like to point out that this is another reason why Loki will sometimes find himself sitting around doing absolutely nothing and feel like he's on top of the world with happiness, why he might tear up a little bit when Tony comes to mind and nobody but Fenrir is present to judge him, because _this _– this ridiculously silly, rom-com sort of dialogue Tony will throw at him like he's fucking _privileged _to be in a situation that allows him to even _think_ such things – is like '_turtledove_', and it belongs to Loki and it's all his and he can hold it like a good luck charm and let it make him feel great about himself for the few seconds it takes his brain to come up with something negative to throw at him and make sure he doesn't stay too content for too long – but more than _anything_, it _belongs_ to him. And that's so perfect it _hurts_ – the kind of hurt that crawls up in your cheeks when you've smiled too hard or laughed too much, that is.)

Loki is at a loss for words for a second or two, every ounce of stubbornness having been drained right out of him at Tony's comment, and when he _does_ manage to speak, he's sighing, "Oh, I hate you so much," and he's pushing his fingers into Tony's hair and Tony is kissing him and his knee is _still_ hurting but he doesn't care that much right now because he can't taste anything but tobacco and peppermint and Tony and he'd be content with his pain for _ages_ if it just meant he could lie here and be kissed.

"I'll be right back," Tony promises against the corner of Loki's mouth, dropping one last peck there before he makes for the door. "Don't fall asleep," he adds on his way out of the room, almost as a playful afterthought.

In spite of that imperative, as soon as Loki can't hear Tony's footsteps anymore, he throws an arm over his eyes and lets himself drift off for a few minutes, never mind how uncomfortable he is lying in a supine position (which is honestly the worst way to sleep _ever_, in his experience – _especially_ when he tends to undergo sleep paralysis if he does opt to slumber in such a fashion), uncovered by any sort of blanket, and sporting body fluids all over his abdomen.

After maybe a minute or two, Loki is half-awoken by the sound of Tony's voice coming from down the hallway, calling in his characteristically cheeky tone, "You better not be sleeping, Loki."

Loki smirks a bit in response, refusing to remove his arm from his face as he challenges, "And what if I am?" He's pretty sure that the rustling noise he hears when he says that is Tony walking into the room, and his prediction is more than confirmed when the man laughs in a direction that sounds a whole lot like slightly above him and somewhere around the foot of the bed, when he replies, "Well, I'd have to wake you up, wouldn't I?"

"I'm _tired_, sweetheart," Loki sighs as if to excuse himself, soft and weary and near-pathetically feeble. He peeks from beneath his forearm just in time to watch Tony reach for his knee, only a second before he's hissing with pain and shivering against the icepack that's being wrapped around his sprain. Tony makes a faint shushing sound that's meant to comfort him more than it's aimed towards shutting him up, gesturing to the space above Loki's head and saying, "Gimme a pillow so I can elevate this."

Loki quickly obliges, passing his boyfriend a pillow and attempting to whine as little as possible as the man props the cushion below his knee. Then, he patiently waits for Tony to finish wiping his abdomen clean, throw his washcloth in the pile of laundry by the door, snatch a water bottle and a pill bottle (that he presumably acquired while he was out hunting for ice) from the floor, and crawl into bed with him. Tony is hasty to kick his boxers off and onto the carpet once he's under the covers and he's made sure that Loki is comfortably blanketed as well, and such an action doesn't fail to draw a tiny smile and a laugh out of Loki – things that mostly Tony only ever gets to behold when they're completely genuine.

"Here," Tony says, handing Loki the pill bottle he's brought and giving him a brief, amused grin. "I thought you'd appreciate a couple of painkillers."

Loki immediately pops two capsules (Of Aleve? Or Tylenol? Motrin? Does the difference really matter?) into his mouth, reaching for the water bottle Tony is passing to him soon after and washing the medication down. It's only after he's handed the two bottles back to Tony and turned onto his side that he lets out a quiet, "Thank you."

"You're very welcome," Tony returns somewhat awkwardly (probably because he doesn't get thanked very often, to be honest), dropping the water bottle on the floor and shoving the painkillers underneath his pillow. He grabs Loki's arm and drapes it over his stomach once he's nice and horizontal again, maneuvers them so that Loki's cranium is resting atop his bicep, brings a hand around to push his fingers into his inky mess of hair, and turns his head to press a moist kiss to his temple. Loki is too tired to do much more than tuck his face below Tony's chin and snuggle into the man's embrace, just as weak and as mortal as he can be.

"I'm gonna go to sleep, okay?" he eventually mumbles, long after the silence between them has gone from being somewhat uncomfortable to just shy of blissful.

"Have sexy dreams about me," Tony jests, trailing his fingertips across the back of Loki's shoulders and smirking a bit when Loki hums with laughter and kisses the side of his neck.

"I _like_ you," Loki whispers, his voice muted and hushed like he might be telling a secret or something.

"Well, _of course_ you do," is Tony's sarcastic, pompous reply. "I mean, why _wouldn't_ you?"

Loki shakes his head with a weary chuckle, cutting Tony off and sighing, "No, no – I'm serious. You're pretty much my favorite person."

Tony makes a pleased noise at that, wraps an arm around Loki's back and brushes his lips across his forehead as he murmurs, "You're my favorite person, too."

"You sure about that?" Loki asks, only a little caustic, only a little bitter. "Because, you know, there's half the student body to consider –"

"Oh, _shut up_ and go to sleep," Tony laughs, swatting gently at Loki's shoulder in mock-punishment. He gives him a tender squeeze after he's snickered in turn, adds – teasing and affectionate – "_Favorite_."

That's about all Loki needs to hear before he drifts off, not a single worry haunting the spooky horror story attic of his consciousness. Of course, when he wakes up a few hours later, he'll be just as insane as he was before Tony took it upon himself to blow his mind, and of course, it's not like the near-perfect combination of sex and sleep is going to fix everything for good, and _of course_, Tony won't always be around or in the mood to put a smile on his face, but at the very second before Loki finally, _finally_ falls asleep, there isn't one thing going terribly wrong in his world.

* * *

_**Saturday, October 15**__**th**__** at 4:28 PM.**_

He's sitting on the living room floor, reading one of his well-loved paperbacks, and trying to play with Fenrir by kicking his rubber ball around and waiting for the husky to bring it back to him when Thor ambles into the room, walks right up to him, and announces, real solemn-like, "We're out of Sprite."

Loki doesn't look up from _East of Eden_ as he replies, distracted and aloof, "Oh." You honestly _can't_ expect him to care all that much about a deficiency of junk food.

The vague, black and khaki blob that is Thor's body shifts a bit in Loki's peripheral vision. "We don't have any hot dogs, either," the man adds, his voice matter-of-fact and imperative in a way that makes Loki actually want to _vomit_ with irritation, because if there's one thing he absolutely _cannot_ handle, it's people passive-aggressively insinuating that he has do something and not just explicitly _asking_ him to do it like anyone with sanity or at least a smidgeon of forethought would (and while we're here, I'd like to point out that this is probably a huge reason why Loki started getting along with Tony a lot faster than he has with anyone else _ever_; Tony hasn't made a habit of beating around the bush with him, _not_ like his family has for most of his life).

"Are you trying to tell me something, Thor?" Loki asks, just barely refraining from growling at his brother and settling instead for the slightly miffed, faintly edgy tone that comes naturally to him.

"Well, uhm…" Thor starts to say, but he quickly trails off after those two maddeningly meaningless words have left him (presumably so that he doesn't say anything that has the potential to send Loki sailing into a rage). It's only when Loki forces himself to tear his eyes away from his book and _look_ at him that the man concedes, "I thought you could come with me to Wal-Mart or something."

_That_ was unexpected.

"I don't know if you noticed, but I kind of _can't walk_," Loki points out, quirking a sassy, insolent eyebrow at his brother and watching the way Thor's face darkens a bit in response. Oddly enough, he doesn't feel at all intimidated or apprehensive (for once).

"You have your crutches, and the doctor said you should try to move around as much as possible," Thor retorts, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Loki this look that could convey anything between irritation and entitlement and even hopefulness, and Loki doesn't know why, but he latches onto the anticipation he thinks he sees in his brother's gaze like it's a lifejacket and he's drowning, and oh _God_, isn't it odd, how easy it is for him to go tripping over his emotions like his life is a gravel driveway and he can feel every rock beneath his feet as he walks because he's wearing the wrong kind of shoes?

"Forgive me if I'm not one-hundred percent into your bid for my health," Loki comments, deadpan. When Thor's expression morphs into something frowning and indignant and _juvenile_, he chuckles, "I'm _kidding_, you oaf," and holds a hand out towards the man, gently closing his novel as he does. "Help me up and we'll go."

It takes Thor a few seconds to realize that _oh_, Loki is saying _yes_ for once (which is kind of funny to think about when you consider the fact that you could probably count how many positive things Loki ejects in a week on only two hands), and his face is overtaken by a relieved, almost surprised smile as he laughs, "Oh, _cool!_", moving to pull Loki up and off the ground as painlessly as possible.

Loki clings to Thor's ridiculously massive shoulders once he's propped up on his left foot, tries (somewhat unsuccessfully) not to find too much discomfort with his brother's hand when it's pressed against the small of his back, and waits a bit impatiently for the man to grab his crutches, and it occurs to him then that the two of them used to touch each other _constantly_; now, they can barely stand to _look_ at one another for over ten consecutive seconds if words aren't vacating them.

And see, that's really something to think about. From the time they were infants up until Thor's fifteenth birthday, Loki and Thor were in near-perpetual physical contact, whether they were holding hands as they walked from place to place or bumping sides when they sat together or snuggling close when they shared a bunk or just _hugging_ each other a whole fucking lot, and _neither_ of them _ever_ considered such a practice to be unusual or embarrassing until Thor decided he was too old for something as _childish_ as _affection_ (because _of course_, it's just _so_ immature to express your love for another human being when you're a high school freshman and you don't want your popular friends to think you're gay because you and your little brother like to sit super-duper close to each other). After that, the possibility of getting shoved away and criticized had Loki avoiding moving into Thor's personal space as much as he possibly could (mostly due to the fact that his heart would end up getting completely _obliterated_ any time Thor so much as cast a disapproving glance his way), and when the accident was over and done with, the thought of even being in the same _room_ as his brother would literally bring Loki to _tears_.

It's been four years since that day in November (only _three_ days before Loki turned eighteen, Jesus _Christ_), but Loki _still _hasn't totally gotten over his inability to let Thor casually touch him. It's a trust thing at heart – he knows _that_ much – but lately, he's been thinking that his skin starts crawling and his tolerance begins to splinter simply out of spite for his brother, and that, quite ironically, Thor seems to want to touch him _more often_ than he did after his misplaced sense of maturity took over in the first place. And Loki doesn't know what to do with that when he can't force himself to be an adult and act like it's _alright_ for Thor to put his hands on him because they're brothers and he's kind of-sort of _striving_ to let himself get comfortable around Thor, or whatever, when he doesn't even understand _why_ Thor suddenly deemed it to be a-_fucking_-okay to touch him again. It's not like he can just _ask_ him.

"Thank you," Loki manages to sigh once he has his crutches anchored beneath his armpits (which are exceptionally sore after all the abuse they've been taking), glancing at Thor a moment before he's shuffling towards the hallway and saying, "I'll be right back, okay? I have to grab my shoes."

"Okay," Thor replies in that relaxed, perfect way he so easily possesses. There's a note of optimism in his tone, something cheery and jubilant and so hilariously _Thor_ that Loki can't help but recognize it and wonder whether he finds it endearing or infuriating. He quickly decides it's better to not make a choice at all.

Loki doesn't know why he's going to the grocery store with Thor, and you should note that when I say that, what I mean is _this_ – Loki doesn't know why he's voluntarily getting into a vehicle with Thor, a vehicle which Thor will be driving to a location that is several miles from his (_their?_) house, a location that will be chock-full of loud, obnoxious people Loki has never met before, and all while he's injured in a way that will make this whole ordeal exponentially more difficult. There's no logical explanation for why he'd do such a thing, but honestly, that's just _it_ – he isn't _being_ logical, and that's mainly because he's trying out this whole ready, fire, aim thing in regards to hanging out with Thor; if he didn't, he wouldn't be down with doing _anything_ with his brother, and that means he'd be breaking his promise to be friends with him again. Ergo, casting common sense to the wind is exactly what Loki's going to do (for the moment, at least).

This is what he's thinking about when he hobbles his way into his room. Loki immediately zeroes in on his shoes and commences towards his bed, where Tony is comfortably reclined and has his nose stuck in a Nintendo DS.

"Hey, chickadee," Tony greets as Loki carefully sits down on the edge of the mattress, leans his crutches against his lap, and bends over to grab his Toms.

"Salutations," is Loki's simple response. He listens to the digitized sounds coming from Tony's DS and automatically identifies the game he's playing as a Pokémon one while he attempts to slip his shoes on without hurting himself too much.

"Are you going somewhere?" Tony asks, the tone of his voice just a bit distracted. He makes a soft, grunting noise of concentration after he's spoken, something Loki can't help but chuckle at.

"Wal-Mart," Loki replies, dragging the back of his shoe over his heel with a quiet hiss of discomfort. "We're running low on a few groceries." (Never mind that said groceries don't _actually_ matter or anything.)

"Are you gonna be alright?" Tony questions. Loki knows Tony well enough to tell that by asking that, he's _not_ just expressing concern for his well-being – he's trying to warn him against accompanying Thor (who is _obviously_ going to be the driver on this journey) to any public place, especially one as crowded and hectic and downright _aggravating_ as a supermarket like Wal-Mart.

"I don't know," Loki sighs. He turns his head to glance over his shoulder just as Tony starts crawling up behind him, gives the man a tiny shrug as he adds, "I guess we'll find out in an hour or so, hm?"

Tony lets out this ambiguous, vague sort of hum that could easily mean both acceptance and dissatisfaction, and while Loki would totally spend over fifteen minutes psychoanalyzing the man's oddly (but not really, when you take the time to break down Tony's psyche) indifferent, taciturn reaction if he could, he can't when Tony is leaning over to nuzzle his nose and kiss him on the lips. He can't think _at all_ when Tony does that, to be honest.

"You have to play this when you get back," Tony murmurs against Loki's mouth, leaning his forehead against the other's with a faint, receptive mirror of a smile and waving his DS in the air for a moment.

"And why would I be required to do that?" Loki asks, just as pretentious as he's allowed to be around Tony and in a way he knows is endearing in the most aggravating manner. A quiet laugh escapes him when Tony smirks, pinches his side through the hoodie he's wearing (which happens to _be_ Tony's, by the way).

"_Because_, I made you a team," Tony replies, resting his chin atop Loki's shoulder and winding his arms around his middle. Unfortunately, it's that confining action that reminds Loki that Thor is waiting for him in the front and that if he makes the man wait at least two minutes longer, he just might get beaten up. Oops.

Instead of attempting to put an end to his conversation, though, Loki says, "I already have a team on my own game."

"I know, but this one is special," Tony insists, giving Loki a brief squeeze and kissing the side of his neck, right over a hickey he left there the previous afternoon. Loki seriously considers staying in bed with Tony and never leaving him, then.

"I'll play with it," Loki promises with a small smile, a smile that widens into a full-blown grin when Tony makes this happy, purring sort of noise and hugs him again, his nose pressing into his hair and his arms tightening their hold on him.

"You should go," Tony eventually mumbles when it becomes apparent that Loki's not going to move without a little nudging. He chuckles a bit, adds, "I don't want King of the Universe to hurt you or anything."

"Behave," Loki chuckles, smacking Tony's arm a second before he lets go of him.

Tony lets out a snorting laugh in response, watching as Loki gets to his feet much like a child would watch their parent, all eager and curious and wonderfully adoring, and once Loki is on his crutches and ready to go, he asks, a little impulsively, "Does that mean I can't smoke in the house?"

Loki sets his expression in a comically deadpan glare, drawing another amused laugh out of Tony, and retorts with only an ounce of levity in his voice (not enough to negate his words, mind you), "Don't even think about it."

"Understood," Tony says, giving Loki a solemn mock-salute that's only spoiled by the slight, impish quirk of his lips. Loki rewards him with one last brief kiss before he's limping out of his room and into what honestly feels like the Mariana Trench.

* * *

The second he's in the passenger seat of Thor's Hummer, anxiety starts to crop up inside of Loki. It never occurred to him that he might actually start freaking out when he was making an active attempt not to think about this whole thing, but now that he can hear the near-obnoxious purr of Thor's engine and smell the old sweat (which is honestly the most disgusting thought Loki can even _fathom_ at the moment, especially when it's accompanied with the knowledge that people like Steve and Clint and Logan have ridden in this car and occupied his seat countless times before) that's practically _embedded_ in the leather interior and turn his head and _see_ his brother with his hands on a steering wheel, he thinks he may just start hyperventilating. And when the radio comes on – oh _God_, when the _radio_ comes on – the volume is at a deafening_ 29_ and Aerosmith is working on blowing Loki's goddamn ears off and Loki is imagining himself ramming his crutch straight through the stereo and then laughing maniacally as Thor grabs him by the neck and flings him out the window, but in reality, he just ends up jumping a little and glaring at the sound system like it's kicked him or something. Fun stuff.

Thankfully (and surprisingly), Thor immediately reaches over to turn the music (read: noise) down and mumbles out a brief, "Sorry."

Loki wants to say '_It's okay_' or something else to that effect, but he's suddenly thirteen years-old and unable to talk without radiating the nuclear waste that is awkwardness, and just like yesterday, he's not sure how to be grateful without coming off as too friendly, and even though he _wants_ to be friendly with Thor, actually succeeding at doing so is terrifying and weird and – dare I say it – _out of character_, and Loki has no _idea_ what to do with variables like that, so he ends up saying nothing and acting like he didn't hear Thor – a tactic that actually sort of makes _sense_ when you consider that Thor apologized so quickly and so quietly.

And then Thor goes, "I have to go get gas," and because Loki really _can't_ just not respond to that, he forces a crisp, "Okay," between his lips. Speech doesn't end up being as hard as he thought it would.

So they're going to a service station. And there's Aerosmith on. And Loki keeps wanting to look at Thor, but he can't physically make himself turn his head. And he keeps wanting to at least _try_ to speak up, but every topic that comes to him isn't exactly Thor's favorite thing in the world (he highly doubts that the man would be terribly fascinated by the indie movie he ordered last week or the book Tony bought him awhile ago or the idle, existentialist musings he'll have whenever his mind is vacant enough). And he's seriously wondering _how_ he and Thor ever managed to live together for so long.

(Just so you know, all this doesn't go to say that Loki and Thor are incapable of talking to each other in a non-argumentative fashion, because they are. It's just that most of the time, if they're having a conversation, they're not exactly bending over backwards to cater to one another's interests or feelings or anything, and a disagreement between the two of them is imminent enough to be considered divine prophecy.)

Seconds before Loki decides it would probably be best if he just withdrew into himself completely, Thor says, "Fandral wants to come over tomorrow and make dinner."

_That's_ reaction-worthy.

"Oh," is what comes out of Loki's mouth first, and that short, one-syllable response ends up sounding a whole lot sharper and uglier than he intended it to (honestly though, that's how almost _everything_ he says turns out).

"Do you want me to tell him not to come or…?" Thor starts to ask. It will only occur to Loki _hours_ later that this is the first time Thor's ever offered to do something like this for him. At this very moment, though? He's too caught up in his own thoughts to notice.

"No, it's just… _unsettling_ to think about Fandral cooking a meal in my house," Loki replies, staring out of his window and into the damp, gloomy grayness of the day. He spies a fat, flustered tomcat fluffy with moisture sitting on a picket fence across the street as Thor turns a corner.

"Why?" Thor questions. At first, Loki thinks that the man is being confrontational by asking him that, but when his brain replays the brief inquiry for him, he realizes that Thor is genuinely curious about _why_ he feels the way he does, and that hasn't happened in _years_, or at least he hasn't been _aware_ of it happening, and for the first time since he was fifteen, he considers telling Thor exactly what's going on in his head, and after the accident and all its awful repercussions, he's only ever done that with Frigga or Tony, and _really_, he's been doing _way_ too much comparing the then to the now within the past twenty or so minutes than is healthy or beneficial to him (but what's surprising about that?).

It's a few seconds before Loki totally convinces himself to partially remove the filter between his mind and his mouth and say, "Because he's practically incapable of being in the same room as me without trying to jump in my pants. And I don't think he's allowed to have any redeeming qualities, or whatever."

Thor makes a face at the road, his mouth quirking into this funny little question mark of a smirk as he chuckles, "That's kind of petty, don't you think?"

"I think I'm entitled to be petty when I've been sexually harassed by him since before I even started college," Loki retorts. He isn't lying or exaggerating, believe it or not.

"Flirting isn't sexual harassment, though," Thor argues. Loki has the remind himself who he's dealing with when anger threatens to come snapping out of him at his brother's tone, at his offhanded, thoughtless invalidation of his feelings (which is truly the main reason why Loki stopped sharing his thoughts with Thor in the first place).

"Well, what would _you_ define as sexual harassment?" Loki asks, turning his head to level two slightly curious, jade green eyes at Thor. It doesn't surprise him when the man fixes his face all weird again at the question.

"Uh, I dunno," Thor says, his voice conveying the kind of apathetic uncertainty Loki expected it would, and _really_, even though it'd be like him to get pissy about this, Loki's not even angry that Thor isn't investing much in deciding what constitutes as sexual harassment and what doesn't, because Thor's never _been_ sexually harassed, not like _he_ has (and he's been harassed _a lot_), so it would be unfair of him to demand that he form an opinion about something that hasn't directly affected him. That doesn't mean he doesn't want the man to understand him, though.

(And while we're here, I'd like to point out that Loki is super embarrassed to be having a conversation about a subject like this – not because he's having this conversation with Thor, but because he's hyper-aware of the fact that Tony has sexually harassed him more times than he can remember, and that kind of makes him feel weak and silly and _stupid_ for falling for him like he has.)

"Okay, then," Loki sighs, glancing out of his window again and squinting his eyes a bit in thought. "If, say, _Steve_ started making really suggestive comments to you, would you consider that to be sexual harassment?"

"I might feel a little weirded out, but like… he's my best friend. He'd probably be kidding," is Thor's careful, somewhat apprehensive answer. There's a tiny note of tension in his voice – something Loki finds way too much delight in picking up on.

"What if he wasn't your best friend?" Loki pushes. He has to force himself not to chuckle at his own question, mainly because asking it is just about as advantageous as trying to get Thor to imagine a world where pigs fly and the grass grows bright purple.

And see, instead of replying to the query, Thor just frowns and asks, "What kind of a question is that?"

But Loki isn't done yet.

"What if it was _Kurt Wagner_ who did this? Or Tony? Or what if Steve tried to make out with you without your permission?" The more he goes on, the deeper Thor's scowl grows and the tighter his hands wind around his steering wheel. "Would you consider _that_ to be sexual harassment?"

"I don't understand what you're trying to get at," Thor huffs, shaking his head at the red light in front of him and leaning back in his seat. "And I don't understand why you're only listing guys." He turns to Loki almost comically fast after he says that, asks, "Are you _trying_ to make me uncomfortable?"

Loki can't stop himself from laughing in amusement in response to his brother's question, smirking a bit with a playful, relatively unconvincing, "_No._"

Thor utters a nervous little chuckle, starts to say, "I mean, I know _you're_ gay, but–"

"I'm not gay," Loki cuts the man off, and when Thor gives him a surprised, puzzled look, he clarifies, "I'm bisexual."

Thor's expression contorts into something oddly satisfied and almost prideful. Loki actually considers punching him in the face, then.

"But that's not the point, Thor," Loki says, easily slipping back into the semi-serious, businesslike demeanor he'd been wearing before Thor sidetracked him. "I didn't intend for you to get uncomfortable, but I'm glad you did, because that's how _I _feel when Fandral is howling at my bedroom door and singing _Hungry Like the Wolf_ or trying to put his tongue in my mouth."

Thor watches the road for thirty long, thoughtful seconds, idly tapping his fingers against his steering wheel and clearly unsure about how he should respond to Loki's argument. Eventually, just before the light turns green, the blond points out, "That was pretty funny when he did that, though."

Loki doesn't know whether he should get bitchy with his brother or just let it go. He reasons that because he's about to spend at least another hour in Thor's company alone, he should drop it, but those are his _feelings_ getting pushed to the side for the fifty-millionth time, getting made into a joke, getting _laughed_ at, and after twenty years of enduring such belittlement, one begins to get _sick_ of _letting it go_.

But before Loki can get pissed off enough to snap at Thor, Thor just up and says, "I think you should have gone out with him."

And suddenly, Loki wants nothing more than to open his car door and roll on down the street until some considerate driver takes it upon themselves to obliterate him beneath their tires, and that makes him remember that he's in a car with Thor, and Thor is _driving_ said car, and _that_ throws his mood into a pit of epic proportions, and _honestly_, what Thor just said to him is pretty high up on the list of things Loki has dreaded ever hearing from the man, right below '_Steve has a schoolboy crush on you_' and above '_I think I broke your [insert object that may or may not be of some value to Loki]_'.

"Oh, really?" Loki snorts, crossing his arms over his chest and casting Thor a vaguely appalled look that he doesn't see (and hopefully won't end up seeing, because he'd have to turn his head to do so, and Loki just might pitch a gigantic bitch fit if Thor takes his eyes off of the road for even a second).

"_Yeah_, really," Thor replies, sounding just as disgustingly self-righteous and sincere as he can be. "I think you guys are really compatible."

For a second, all Loki can do is sit and gawk at the dashboard as if he's just been slapped in the face, stuck halfway between shock and revulsion and about two-hundred percent _done_ with this conversation and everything it entails. When he manages to regain the gift of speech, he says, obviously indignant, "What would we talk about? What would we do? How would we even _interact_ without me caving his _face_ in?"

"Loki, he's _not_ a bad guy," Thor argues, speeding up momentarily in an attempt to beat a red light and thoroughly succeeding at scaring the living _shit_ out of Loki. "And it's not like he wants to go out with you just because he thinks you're hot. He actually _likes_ you, you know."

"Why would he like _me_ when I've been nothing but an asshole to him?" Loki sighs. He thinks about Tony as soon as that question has left him.

"I don't know, but he _does_," Thor replies, glancing at Loki with a bemused little grin that Loki seriously contemplates slapping right off of his face. "I mean, he talks about you sometimes, and he thinks you're funny and stuff–"

"Oh, of _course_ he does," Loki cuts Thor off, rolling his eyes and thunking the back of his head against his seat and generally looking every bit the exasperated, anxious young man he is at the moment. "That's what it _always_ is."

Thor frowns a bit, confused, asks, "What are you talking about?"

What Loki is talking about is the propensity of people – especially people who, for whatever reason, are attracted to him – to assume that he's _funny_, a propensity that does a spectacular job at _infuriating_ him, because, to be completely honest, he _isn't_ a funny person. He's sarcastic, sure, but that doesn't make him _humorous_, and the reason _why_ he's sarcastic is because he's vain, and the reason why he's _vain_ is because he harbors an intense dislike for people in general, and _that_, my friends, is _not_ funny in the slightest. But people – people like Fandral and Kitty and _Tony_ – like to think that he's just oh-so fucking _hilarious_ because he can make a biting-yet-clever jibe at person A or predicament B, when really, he's just the human equivalent of hydrochloric acid and therefore extremely corrosive and not comical in the slightest. It's not funny to be sarcastic when you're just using irony to hide the fact that you'd rather _kill yourself_ than stand to live another three minutes making your stupid, cowardly, _sarcastic_ little comments that are the exact opposite of honesty and just the kind of amusing thing everybody loves to hear.

But Loki isn't going to explain that to Thor, because if he did, he'd only end up getting angrier than he already is (and this whole exchange is reminding him too much of his relationship with Tony and the flaws it might have for his comfort, and _yeah_, he's absolutely certain that he'll love Tony no matter how imperfect he can be, but every interaction he's ever had with the man just goes on to say that _loving_ him doesn't guarantee _being with_ him, and right now, the thought of not being with Tony is about the most awful thing Loki can imagine – _thanks_, Thor). Instead, he replies, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Fandral likes me for me. He doesn't respect me, so it doesn't matter."

"Are you just saying that because he flirts with you a lot?" Thor asks, pulling into the driveway of a service station just as he's punctuating that question.

"_Tony_ flirts with me a lot, but he respects me enough to back off when I tell him to," Loki retorts. "He doesn't belittle my feelings or objectify me like Fandral does, and even _besides_ that, Tony and I have things in common and we like to talk to each other about _actual stuff_." He runs a hand through his hair, makes a face at the air in front of him as he asks, "What is _Fandral_ interested in, besides first-person shooters and apparently _cooking_ things and the shortage of _himself_ in any situation, most especially _my bed?_"

Thor looks at Loki long and hard for saying that, his eyes wide and shocked and his expression almost comically _awed_. "That was _harsh_, bro," he comments, keying the engine off with a quiet, bewildered laugh.

"Only because it was true," Loki counters. He and Thor share a lengthy, somewhat uncomfortable look, then, and it almost feels like a challenge, the way they stare at each other like they're daring the other to say something foolish or inflammatory, and Loki feels like they're teenagers again when his eyes are locked with Thor's and there's too-familiar, too-bitter defiance springing up in him at the shade of his brother's irises, and he's not sure if that makes him uneasy or tickles him the slightest bit. Maybe it does a little bit of both.

"If it makes you feel better, he doesn't _try_ to disrespect you," Thor offers when it becomes apparent that Loki's not going to say anything more. "He just really, _really_ likes you, and I don't know. I guess that makes him act like an idiot sometimes."

_Again_, Loki finds himself thinking of Tony. He lowers his gaze to his lap so that he doesn't have to see Thor anymore, picks at the fabric of his boyfriend's hoodie and echoes himself with a soft, resigned, "It doesn't matter."

Thor watches him for a few seconds after he's said that, his gaze physically obtrusive and unsettling in that weird way only gazes operate in, but Loki doesn't let himself look at the man, doesn't let himself acknowledge his _there_-ness (which is different from his presence, mind you) until he asks, all out of the blue and without any sort of pretense, "Do you want me to get you a soda or something?"

Loki is only half-surprised by Thor's seemingly arbitrary question, and that's because he knows his brother well after having grown up with him and, once upon a time, been so close to him. Thor has never been one to get sentimental about conversations, so if he sees fit to end one, he won't think twice about doing so, and the realization that Thor asked him such a random question, a question that was most likely intended to kill the talk they were just smack dab in the middle of, makes Loki fear that he upset the man by insulting Fandral (never mind how justified he was in doing so), and _that_ makes him fear that the two of them are going to spend his whole recovery arguing about each other's friends, and _that_ fills him with a sort of antipathy that would suffocate him if he let it (and I use the word '_suffocate_' quite literally).

"Uhm, maybe some tea?" Loki replies, taking in the disconcertingly ambiguous expression on Thor's face. He's twelve years-old and just starting to find out what it's like to be awkward and uncertain around his brother.

"'Kay," is all Thor says in response before he's opening his car door and sliding out of the cockpit. Loki keeps on staring at the space Thor had previously been occupying well after the man is gone.

It takes Loki awhile to consciously recognize that he's upset. After that, it occurs to him that he's _always_ upset, and that he's always upset about multiple things all at one time, and that such a happening is what makes him so angry and hateful more often than not. He's good at having useless epiphanies, wouldn't you say?

But, really. Loki realizes that he's legitimately _distraught_ about what just happened, and not because of Fandral, and (mostly) not because of Tony, and not even because of anything Thor actually _said_ to him. It's what Thor _didn't_ say, and what _he_ didn't say, and what they _both_ didn't say and didn't do and didn't even _think_ to say or do that makes Loki want to go lie down for a long, _long_ time and not get up or talk to anybody if his life depended on it. _Especially_ if his life depended on it.

He misses Thor. That's all there is to it. He doesn't miss him in the sense that he yearns for his company, because _believe_ me, he has that in uncomfortable and infuriating amounts already. No, no, no – Loki misses Thor being his _best friend_, and _that_ is something he doesn't feel like he has at all.

Now, I'm not trying to say that Loki doesn't appreciate _Tony_ being his best friend, because he really, _really_ does. It's no lie that Tony is probably the most spectacular friend Loki has ever had, in terms of how their friendship has developed and strengthened over time and the overall chemistry between them. But Loki is suddenly, horrifically aware of the fact that Tony can't be his best friend if Thor is his best friend, and vice versa. And that he's forced to be two different people on a daily basis – version one of himself being Tony's version, and version two being Thor's. And that he's not really sure which Loki he truly _is_ anymore, not sure if he's being _himself_ or just a brighter clone of his own ego when he's around Tony, not sure if the Loki Thor grew up with is the identity he takes on around his brother or if it was lost in all the debris and broken glass and fractured bones of the accident. And that he hates himself for being so duplicitous. And that it's nearly impossible for him to reconcile the life that Tony occupies and the life that Thor does, and that's _awful_ because Tony stimulates him and protects him and keeps him sane and keeps him _wanting_, but Thor is constant and familiar and addictive and _his brother_, and Loki needs both of them so _badly _that it could honestly be called a matter of life or death, but he can't _have_ them both the way he wants to have them – he can only choose _one_ of them, and at this point in his existence, Tony is _definitely_ the more comfortable and fitting option. That's a bearable thought under most circumstances, but when Loki feels like he's ten years-old and he needs his brother to look at him and give him a great big hug and tell him that everything's going to be okay because that's what _best friends_ do for each other, it breaks his heart to think that the person he loves more than anything is keeping him from being as close as he wants to be with Thor, in a roundabout sort of way.

And for a second, he just wants the accident to never have happened. He wants to have never grown up. He wants to have never fallen in love. He wants to have never met Tony.

_That's_ a thought that stops Loki cold and steals the breath straight from his lungs, because he'd never, _ever_ permit himself to think _anything _of that sort if he were in his right mind, because Tony is the person who saved his life in the sense that Loki would probably have offed himself if the man hadn't strolled right into his world with all his stupid charisma and his selective ability to say the right thing at the right time, because he's never been happier in the company of _anyone_ in all his twenty years, because Tony is someone who makes him feel like a character in a musical or a Disney movie, who is the farthest thing from Prince Charming and yet plays the part perfectly when he's in his presence, who – certain as the sun rising in the east – is magic and friendship and romance and whimsy to Loki, who is something _wonderful_, and here Loki is, wishing he'd never met him because _Thor_ – who almost killed him, by the way – _isn't_ his best friend anymore. '_Conflicted_' doesn't even _begin_ to cover the way Loki is feeling right now.

Loki jumps a bit in surprise when Thor opens his car door and reaches over to hand him the green tea he requested. There's a moment where he just stares at the beverage like taking it might actually _mean_ something, like he and Thor are a point on a number line and his accepting of the man's drink will move them up a notch or two, but his relationship with Thor _isn't_ a video game, and they're not going to level up just because Loki has elected to accept a bottle of _tea_ from his brother. They are much more complicated than that.

"Thanks," he mumbles as Thor passes him his drink, only allowing himself a momentary glance at his brother and offering him a brief, forced smile. Thor seems to see through the expression, though, because his own face makes a frown in response.

"You okay?" the man asks, leaning further into the car so that he might get a better look at Loki. Loki doesn't let that gesture force him to return Thor's gaze, though, instead chooses to keep his eyes firmly glued to the green cap staring up at him from his lap.

"I'm fine," he lies. There's a pregnant pause after he says that, uncomfortable and telling and full of accusation, and Loki _knows_ without even looking at his brother that Thor can see right through him, but _honestly_, his thoughts are so scattered right now that he can't even be bothered.

That is, until Thor points out, "You promised that you'd tell me whenever something's wrong, remember?"

He most certainly does. And he feels like a fucking moron for _ever_ swearing something like that to his brother.

"I'm just confused, Thor," he sighs, finally allowing himself to turn his head and regard the man fully. He gives a small shrug, adds, more to lessen the weight attached to his problem than to exonerate himself, "And that's _alright_, because I'm _always_ confused."

"That's like saying '_I have cancer, but that's alright, because I always have cancer_,'" is Thor's brilliant reply – a reply that has Loki's face splitting in two and a rare, unprecedented laugh (I say '_rare_' because it's an odd day when Thor gets Loki to let out a genuine laugh with his words or actions) tearing its way out of him.

"I'm _okay_," Loki assures Thor, more certain of the truth in his statement now that his brother has oh-so splendidly (and most likely accidentally) equated his confusion to terminal illness (and you know, the reason why that's so funny is probably because Loki was doing the same thing, in a way, but he was actually taking himself _seriously_). When Thor refuses to stop looking at Loki like he's lying to him (which he kind of is) or like he's on the verge of breaking down (which he kind of was), he gives the man a soft, awkward little smile that feels all wrong on his face (because only _Tony_ is supposed to see him look like that) and says, "You don't have to worry about me."

Thor scowls a bit, giving Loki one last disbelieving glance and an incredulous, "_Alright_," before he's closing his car door and making it his mission to fill his fuel tank with gasoline. After that, Loki is left alone with his tea and his thoughts, and while that in and of itself is a little novel in just the way Loki likes, he isn't terribly fond of his thoughts more often than not, and his tea isn't even hot.

He closes his eyes and sees an abundance of Thor – Thor in profile; Thor sitting across the table from him that afternoon at the library, staring up at him with his icy, clear blue gaze; Thor dancing in Steve's living room amongst all the jocks and cheerleaders at the homecoming party; Thor standing on the other side of Loki's doorway that evening in August, asking if he can live with him 'just for a little while'; Thor sprinting across a football field, happier than he'd ever be otherwise; Thor peering down at him from his bunk; Thor right next to him with nothing but the sea beyond, clutching his hand tightly and murmuring meaningless reassurances; Thor running ahead of him down the hallway back at home, clad in nothing but a bedsheet and a pair of tidy-whities; Thor in the cafeteria, seemingly miles away and surrounded by Clint, Steve, and Balder; Thor red-eyed and intoxicated and completely unaware of the weeping, broken, equally high brother across the room from him; Thor beside him in the snow, a perfect, almost radiant smile plastered across his face as he brings his arms up to spread the wings of his snow angel; Thor growling and angry and drunk and _not paying attention to the road_ and headlights casting him in shadow from behind seconds before there's glass and metal everywhere, and Loki knows he's going to die, but more than anything, he's afraid that _Thor_ won't make it out alive.

Loki forces himself to open his eyes, screws his bottle of tea open, takes a long, deliberate sip, then lets his eyelids fall shut once more. This time, he brings the cuff of his sleeve up to his nose and takes a whiff of the Axe and tobacco and oil embedded in the fabric, and he's seeing Tony – Tony watching him with adoring eyes as he's shaking off cobwebs of sleep; Tony beneath him, slack-jawed and rapturous and in love as he loses himself; Tony in the light of his own doorway, looking like some sort of lonely, lovelorn angel; Tony in the passenger seat next to him, anger slowly creeping into his expression in response to his heated rant about Thor; Tony staring at him all wide-eyed and shocked and _helpless_ as he spills the contents of his soul, as he throws around terms like _bipolar disorder_ and _clinical depression_; Tony dancing and contagious, grabbing him by his hands and forcing him to move; Tony on New Year's Eve, wasted and half-asleep and mere _inches_ from kissing him; Tony wrapped in a blanket from his childhood, cursing and crying and quaking with withdrawal; Tony deftly dodging his clumsily aimed punch, only to duck his way into his arms; Tony grinning at him, a Christmas present in his lap and a holly wreath on his head; Tony before he even had a name, when he was just another person Loki didn't want to meet in sunglasses most people wouldn't be caught _dead_ in; Tony sitting in the grass in his backyard the day before Thor moves in, smiling sadly and promising him the world, and Loki's never felt more wanted than he does when Tony says, "You're always welcome at my place, you know."

Loki's reverie is shattered when Thor opens his car door and drops into the driver's seat, unceremonious and abrupt and characteristically _Thor_. Amid the man's offhanded comment of, "And to Wal-Mart we go," and the obnoxious revving of the Jeep's engine, it occurs to Loki that he's emotionally fucked now and he can't do a thing about it. _Spectacular_.

* * *

Thor crowds the shopping cart around the supermarket while Loki limps along beside him and tries to avoid any and all lingering eyes that might wander his way. Every now and then, Thor will end up outpacing Loki and Loki will make a huge deal out of stopping in the middle of whatever aisle they're in until the man comes to meet him and agrees to slow down a little, but for the most part, they manage to be _not_ awkward and as much of a team as they'll ever be.

"What do you want for dinner?" Loki asks when he realizes that they're approaching the frozen dinner section. He figures it's better to get that out of the way while they're here.

"Could we get a pizza?" Thor throws back at him in response, not even waiting for Loki's answer before he's leading the way down the aisle. Loki makes a slightly flustered noise as he turns himself on his crutches to follow his brother.

"Sure," he replies somewhat dumbly, feeling just as useless and ignorable as he always does. He sighs quietly when he comes to a stop beside Thor, who is inspecting the various pizzas before him like one might a car they're considering buying.

A few quiet, inactive moments pass, and then, much to Loki's surprise, Thor asks him, "Which kind do you want?"

Loki looks up from the speckled teal square he's been studying on the floor to give Thor a puzzled glance, says, a little gauchely, "I don't care."

Thor turns to him like he might have actually insulted him (oh, _God_), questions, "You're going to eat, right?"

Because Loki hasn't quite yet reached his quota for patience today, all living things in his immediate vicinity (namely Thor) are spared certain death via word venom and are instead blessed with a mildly sassy, halfway-to-chilly, "Well, _yes_."

But because Thor is blissfully unaware of the borderline lethal statements floating around in his brother's head – most of which had a fighting chance at coming out of him – he foolishly decides that it's okay to work on Loki's temper and ask, "Then why _wouldn't_ you care?", and that's when Loki realizes that the man is actually _confused_ by his absence of opinion and that that such absence is an idiosyncrasy that would be practically _impossible_ to explain to Thor and _oh my God_, they barely even know each other anymore.

And see, it's not that Loki genuinely _doesn't care_ about what they're going to eat or that he doesn't have a preference, because he _does_ (thin crust and all the toppings, to be specific). It's just that he's learned to stop placing importance on his own predilections when it comes to feeding Thor, because feeding Thor is a lot like feeding a growing teenager, and Loki doesn't fancy the idea of having a grumpy, hungry brother on his hands in the event that he isn't satisfied with whatever meal he's happened to prepare. So, his opinions usually have little to no weight when it comes to dinner. Thor acting like they do is unusual and aggravating, to say the least.

But rather than saying all that, Loki shrugs and replies, "Pizza is pizza. Whatever's on it doesn't make that much of a difference to me."

Thor's face puckers, and all of a sudden, he has the audacity to _glare_ at Loki like he's actually done something wrong or – dare I say it – _offended_ him, and it takes the willpower of the gods for Loki to refrain from starting a legitimate fist fight or a screaming fest with the man in the middle of this fucking supermarket, to instead look directly at him and say, simply and (for the most part) calmly, "I don't understand why this is such a problem."

"It's not," Thor quickly replies, his tone defensive and absolutely grating to Loki's ears. "I just thought you'd have more of an opinion about what you're going to put in your stomach, that's all."

(FYI: The reason why Thor has such an issue with Loki's lack of a clear stance on this whole dinner thing is because the Loki from before every breakthrough they've had over the past month, the Loki he grew up with and the real, unadulterated, uninhibited Loki and the Loki he apparently _hated_ being around would _definitely_ care about what kind of fucking _pizza_ they're going to eat for dinner. _That_ Loki would say how he felt and say it quite boldly. _That_ Loki would try his very hardest to make sure that Thor _knew_ he was important enough in their household to have an opinion about _pizza toppings_, and _that_ Loki is a Loki that Thor is uncomfortable without, to be completely honest. No matter how hard it is to live with that Loki, Thor only ever knows how to act around him, and the fact that Loki is actively attempting to compromise and, I don't know, _not be an asshole_ has thrown him off his groove in a way neither of them expected, let alone _realize_.)

"Well, I was just trying to be considerate," Loki snaps, feeling his brow tighten and furrow with irritation. He shifts on his crutches, glancing across the aisle in an attempt to be dramatic and standoffish without the use of his arms. "Sorry if that's such a bother to you."

Thor doesn't react to Loki's words for several lengthy seconds, and Loki briefly thinks back to the days when they were children and they'd give each other the silent treatment in retaliation against some perceived offense they might have suffered at one another's hands (and for the record, he's more than a little ticked off that Thor is catching a fucking attitude with him over a _goddamn __**pizza**_, that the man is actually _upset_ with him for being the exact opposite of himself and showing him a little kindness, which is supposed to be what he wanted all along). The sound of a pizza box hitting the bottom of the shopping cart is what ends up breaking the silence between them; Loki notes with a tiny scowl that it has three-meat toppings – one of his _least_ favorite kinds (But is he going to complain? No.).

"We should also get some candy," Thor interjects once they're moving again. Loki isn't sure whether he should be relieved or pissed off by the man's move to change the subject.

"Why?" he retorts, managing to be the slightest bit snippy with his response. The noise that comes out of Thor then sounds a whole lot like a _huff_.

"Because Halloween is coming up and you love me enough to let me have it," Thor smoothly replies. His answer catches Loki off guard for two reasons – _one_, because it's so offhandedly amiable, and _two_, because the word '_love_' is in it, and the two of them haven't explicitly expressed their love for one another in _years_, and Thor just saying something like that so _casually_ and with such _certainty_ makes Loki pretty uncomfortable for reasons I'm sure are fairly obvious. But Loki is careful to make that as unapparent as he possibly can, considering the weird, ambivalent sort of mood he's in (a mood he's found himself in with increasing frequency since he sprained his knee).

"Uhm, it's the 15th today," he points out as he and Thor approach the flamboyantly ostentatious display set up in the middle of the store, complete with buckets of individually packaged, bite-sized candy, huge fake spiders, and the full cast of _Peanuts_ in Halloween costumes. "You have another half a month to go."

"But, _Loki_," Thor half-whines, grabbing a sac of assorted candies from one of the plastic bins and holding it up for his brother's inspection. Loki absently notes that the bag fits almost wholly in the man's hand. "Could you humor me?"

Loki doesn't know the answer to that question. _Could_ he? Could he _really?_ Is today the day he transforms himself from a frosty icicle of a person to the human equivalent of a toaster strudel (in the sense that he's gooey and warm on the inside and also something most people enjoy)?

(It turns out that he _kind of _could.)

"_You're_ paying for it," he grudgingly concedes after he's been assaulted by the full, unadulterated force of Thor's gaze, which honestly resembles that of a wounded puppy (and will the eerie similarities between Thor and Tony _ever_ end?).

Thor chuckles like he's said something funny, smacks Loki on the bicep with his free hand (a thoughtless move, considering that a full-fledged _hit_ is what constitutes as a '_smack'_ for Thor and that Loki is being nearly completely supported by his arms at the moment), drops two bags of candy into their shopping cart, and retorts, all stupidly entitled and pompous like he normally is, "Of course I am."

Loki is at a loss for words at that, having expected (and maybe even _wanted_, knowing him) Thor to get a little irritable or something with his reluctance. He feels somewhat slighted as he watches Thor toss yet _another_ bag of tooth decay into their basket, as he lets out an unwilling, half-confused, "Thanks."

Mere seconds from punctuating Loki's perfunctory expression of gratitude and totally ignorant of the man's blatant lack of enthusiasm (or _acting_ like he is, at least), Thor asks, "Dude, do you remember these?" He's pointing at a package of rings with black, orange, or violet plastic spiders on them, and _yes_, Loki _does_ recall when such trinkets were things he, Thor, and their cousins would wear and scatter all about their parents houses around the time Halloween rolled around.

"Yeah," he fumbles just as Thor grabs a pack of them and pitches them into their cart along with all the unnecessary pounds of pure sugar that are already there, and before he can even open his mouth all the way to ask just _what_ Thor thinks they're going to do with _one hundred_ plastic spider rings and if he'd be down with footing Fenrir's medical bills in the event that the dog decides to _eat_ some of them, something even _more_ intriguing catches the man's eye, and he lets out a pleased laugh as he turns to Loki with a pair of fuzzy black cat ears in his grasp and promptly shoves them onto his head. Because polite people with standard social conventions do these kinds of things.

"Now you're a kitty," Thor crows with a radiant, easy smile that's ingrained in the very fabric of his personality, a smile that has gained him heaps of friends and whole _mountains_ of admirers and one very envious, very _bitter_ younger brother over the years. Loki almost has the heart to be tickled by him, _almost_ lets himself chuckle at Thor's infantile, playful observation of his sudden transformation into a feline at the hands of a mere costume piece, _**almost**_ keeps himself from being a bitch or a stick in the mud or a killjoy or anything he normally is.

Instead – and mainly because he's too done with courtesy (no thanks to the three-meat pizza sitting in his shopping cart) to do otherwise – he offers Thor a deadpan, "Ha," aims a juvenile pout at the man, and inclines his head his way. "Take them off, please. People might stare."

"So?" Thor snorts just in time for a teenage passerby to come running up to the display opposite them and give the pair a quick double take. "I thought you didn't care about what other people thought about you."

"I _don't_, when such people aren't young children that are convinced I'm an adorable cat who wants to play with them," Loki quickly retorts, but as he's saying this, he's eying a pair of bunny ears by the same manufacturer as the cat ones resting on his cranium with an impish sort of interest – something that's always been inherent to his nature wherever Thor or his family is concerned.

And then, without thinking, he just reaches out, snatches them up, and spends ten embarrassingly long seconds placing them on Thor's head. The sole reason why it takes him so long to succeed at doing so is because he can't raise his arms all the way without letting his crutches fall to the floor, and he's only able to get the damn ears on Thor's head after the man has gotten tired of being entertained by his difficulty and fastened them there himself, the _asshole_.

"Is this payback?" Thor asks when Loki lets slip a small, vaguely satisfied smile in response to his abnormally undignified appearance (except – just because it's _Thor_ we're talking about here – he really _doesn't_ look all that undignified; he just looks _funny_).

"I don't know," Loki replies with a careful shrug. "Does it feel like it is?"

"Not really," is Thor's comically pleased answer. He starts walking away from the display, then, like he and Loki totally _aren't_ wearing fake animal ears or anything, and when Loki follows after the man, he does it hesitantly and with several pairs of curious eyes on him (like people haven't ever seen a grown man with cat ears on his head before).

And see, this is silly to a nearly _unbelievable_ extent, what they're doing right now, and it's weird and it's childish and it makes Loki feel so much younger than he actually is and not in an entirely bad way, and it has him wondering if his relationship with Thor really _isn't_ as tempestuous as he thinks it is half the time (but it is) and if they're actually capable of _being_ this way again – offhand and frivolous and just like they were before the accident (but they aren't – not at this point), and to Loki, those possibilities are almost _worth_ looking like an idiot in the middle of Wal-Mart or limping all over the place on a pair of crutches or relinquishing an afternoon with Tony to spend some time with Thor, and _that_, my friends, is a terrifying prospect when you consider the fact that _one_ – acting foolish, _two_ – enduring any sort of pain, and _three_ – being away from Tony are pretty high up on Loki's List of Least Favorite Things To Do.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone, everyone.

"Are you planning on buying these ears, too?" Loki asks as soon as he catches up with his brother, panting with exertion and wincing at the pain in his armpits. Thor looks over at him after he's voiced that question, his expression only a little sheepish (because he forgot that he's got a cripple for a brother for the _six-hundredth time_ today, Loki assumes, and while we're here, I'd like to point out the fact that Thor has _never_ been adept at taking care of Loki in a physical sense – he's much better at assessing and assuaging his mental state).

"Yeah, sure," Thor says, steadily approaching a monstrous checkout line with all the resolve of a determined war general leading his troops into battle – his troops being a somewhat weary, semi-incapacitated faux feline of a younger brother, that is. An ambiguous smile plays on his lips as he adds, "Who knows? We might find some use for them."

Coupled with that possibly suggestive remark, the mental image that Thor's words conjure up (which is actually pretty hilarious and mainly involves Tony and a gross lack of clothing) makes for a spectacularly flustered, uncomfortable, and – believe it or not – _amused_ Loki. He lets out a brief, self-conscious little chuckle, his cheeks growing the tiniest bit rosy, and even when Thor gives him a bemused glance, he keeps himself from saying anything, half-afraid of what might come out of him if he did.

It's only after they've checked out and gotten settled back in Thor's Hummer that Thor seems to realize exactly _why_ Loki was so tickled by his comment.

"You're some kind of _freak_, you know that?" the man suddenly blurts as Loki clicks his seatbelt on. Loki looks up, slightly puzzled, to find his brother staring at him with the most astounded look on his face, and the grin that overtakes his expression then is bright and devious like it only ever is if Tony's the one beholding it, and he's not sure if that frightens him or comforts him or manages to do both at the same time or neither, but for once, every pretentious little thought or idea that might fly through his head doesn't matter that much, because Thor isn't truly disapproving of him and this whole situation is honestly kind of funny and being silly – being silly with _Thor_ – feels _good_. It actually feels really _good_.

"Maybe I'm just especially imaginative," Loki says, shrugging impishly and watching how Thor's eyes follow the action, careful and intrigued and like one might read a favorite book from their childhood, and then Thor is grinning, too, but unlike Loki (and unlike _himself_, for that matter), his smile is soft and sentimental – qualities he nearly _never_ has.

That would be Loki's heart thawing and melting and slowly seeping through the spaces in his ribcage right about now (not that he'd ever admit it, and no X-ray would be able to prove it, thank goodness).

"That's _you_," Thor laughs, keying his engine into gear. "My '_especially imaginative_' baby brother."

The words '_baby brother_' should bother Loki. They really should, and they almost do. But the odd sensation that curls up in his chest means a _world_ more than a simple little '_almost_' ever could, and Loki doesn't know what to call it or how to identify it or why his psyche has been doing jumping jacks for the past half-hour or why Thor's the only person capable of causing said jumping jacks even after all the bullshit they've been through, but it's warm, and it's suffocating, and it's uncomfortable and unwelcome and grounding all at once, and it's not quite pride and it's not quite nostalgia, but there's just enough of both mixed into it that Loki knows it's not going to kill him to just sit with it and enjoy its company for a little while.

They wear their animal ears on the ride home because Thor is eager to see how many people will notice them at intersections. Loki indulges himself in too many peanut butter cups and unwraps bite-sized Three Musketeers' for his brother. They don't talk about anybody or anything in particular for once, and the absence of music is soothing instead of painful or awkward or simply _unbearable_.

In other words, they're _normal_ for several music-free, sugar-filled, nonverbal, absolutely _wonderful_ moments. They're _normal_, normal like they haven't been for _eons_, normal like they used to be when they were young and foolish, normal like only perfect people ever have the luxury of being. They're _normal_, and Loki couldn't be happier if he tried.

* * *

When Loki shuffles on into his bedroom, all decked out in his faux-feline apparel and wearing three spider rings on his fingers, Tony has given up his DS in favor of his laptop. His face is a mask of concentration the moment before he looks up upon Loki's arrival, and in the relative dimness of the room, his body is cast in a pale, blue-tinted glow that seems like it belongs on him, like the idea of him should always be accompanied by that somehow beautiful artificial halo.

And in the brief, nearly nonexistent second before Tony's eyes land on him, the second before the man's brain can register the sound of him opening the door and the hazy vision of his silhouette entering the room, Loki sees Tony in a way that he usually wouldn't think to appreciate or have the time to pay attention to, because even though he knows Tony exceptionally well, he isn't quite familiar with the person he becomes when they're not together, and Tony tends to talk about that facet of himself in a less than positive light. But Loki sees that Tony for the most fleeting moment, and when he sees that Tony, he's on the verge of winding down from the agony trip he took all the way down the hall – a trip in which he remembered himself wanting to have never met his boyfriend and pondered how he might deal with that knowledge when Tony is kissing him or touching him or talking to him like everything is normal, which everything would _be_ if not for his habit of thinking himself into conundrums so complicated he could suffocate on his own air.

That Tony is sitting in Loki's bedroom – meaning the room Loki sleeps in and reads in and does his homework in and keeps most of his personal possessions in and surfs the Internet in and curls up and thinks in and hides from the world in and talks on the phone with him in and has had countless conversations and sleepovers with him in – with no lights on because he's probably been on the computer since Loki left, and when he gets on the computer, he loses track of time and doesn't pay attention to the way the world dims as the minutes go by or the fact that the world even _exists_, and he's focused on whatever he's doing or reading in a way one can only be when they're completely alone, and the right side of his lip is pinched and tight, so Loki knows he's biting the inside of it, and he's wearing a t-shirt with Cloud Strife on it, and his hair is the mess it always is, and he doesn't appear to be drunk or engaging in any sort of reckless activity or trying to lose himself in any way, and upon seeing _that_ Tony, Loki is hit with the simple, not at all alarming realization that he'd be _dead_ if he'd never met this man, and that he loves him very, _very_ much, and no amount of nostalgia or longing for Thor could ever change that.

And when Tony looks at him, it's like his whole being clicks into a _with Loki_ gear, because his eyes start smiling and he takes on this alive quality that Loki never sees him with in the event that the man is unaware of his presence or surrounded by any of his other friends (the friends he claims are absolutely _wonderful_, by the way).

"Hey, chickadee," he greets him, the nickname coming out of him almost on accident, as if he doesn't even realize that he's been attaching these adorable bird-related pet names to the end of every _something_ he'll say to Loki for the past week. He amends his statement with a playful, "Or should I say '_kitty cat_'?" when Loki advances farther into the room and the cat ears on his head become more apparent.

"Please, don't," Loki replies with an unwilling smile, bowing his head without thinking as he sidles up next to his bed and carefully drops himself down onto it. "Thor thinks that my wearing these silly things is amusing for some reason."

Tony hums from behind him – a low, appreciative noise that Loki's not too certain how he feels about, and then – "He has a good sense of humor."

"_Wow_, Tony," Loki grumbles as he props his crutches against his nightstand and winces at his impossibly sore armpits, only half-sincere. What he's _really_ meditating on is the fact that Tony sort of-kind of just _complimented_ Thor, and even though the remark was a teasing one and made only in an impish attempt to vex him, Tony's usually _way_ too proud to contradict his disdain for another person like that.

"No, really," Tony quickly recovers, and this time, his words are occupying a space _much_ closer to Loki than they were before, and Loki feels helpless in a way that's a bit romantic instead of infuriating when the man's chin finds his shoulder and his arms are wrapping around his middle, pulling him further into bed (what a _warm_ thought). A kiss below Loki's ear makes his lips curve upwards the tiniest bit, and Tony's breath tickles his skin when he says, "I think they're cute."

"_You_ think they're sexy," Loki retorts, turning his head as much as he's able before Tony nips at his jaw in a manner that could either be reprimanding or just flirtatious. Tony's arms tighten around him (an even _warmer_ thought).

"Sue me," Tony purrs, and _oh_ – the thing his voice does when he says that is _insane_ in the way it basically _kills_ every last cell in Loki's brain, and _seriously_ – Tony's _not_ supposed to be _that_ alluring, and there's another kiss against the shell of his ear and another on the lobe and another right underneath it, and Loki is actually starting to think that the whole sexy cat thing isn't _that_ crazy –

Except it is when the words '_sexy cat thing_' are crossing his mind in that order and in that context. Yeah, that's _not_ going to happen any time soon.

"Are you gonna wear them for Halloween?" Tony asks, helping him lift his legs onto the mattress and grabbing a pillow to elevate his sprain on. As soon as Loki can look Tony in the eyes again, he sees a light in them that he'd been missing when his back was turned on him, and he's more than merely _warmed_ by it – he's _enchanted_.

"Maybe I'll put them on for trick-or-treaters or something," he muses in reply. Loki leans back against his headboard and watches as Tony grabs his laptop and scoots backwards to sit side-by-side with him, and then Tony's kissing him again, but on the mouth rather than on the ear, and he's kissing him quickly and sweetly instead of with the intent to put him in a coma or melt his skin off, and Loki finds himself wondering _why_ he didn't try out this whole relationship business sooner than he did (but he already knows the answer to that question, and it's an answer that threatens to murder his steadily improving mood).

"Imagine you in cat ears, doling out candy to seven year-old vampires and princesses," Tony chuckles, his attention now half-concentrated on the image he's editing in PhotoShop.

"Actually, I think superheroes are the _in_ thing this year," Loki notes, absurdly thrilled with the pleasantly idle conversation he and Tony are maintaining (keep in mind that idle conversation is something he _abhors_ under most circumstances). He considers doing something really weird the instant that he isn't speaking anymore, and I only say that it's weird because for his entire life before last week, he _wasn't_ a cuddly person. _Now_, he's one half of a huge, dramatic love story that probably only exists in his head.

_Now_, he wants to lean against Tony's side. No, not _lean_ – _**snuggle**_.

And see, have you ever noticed that for the most part, the bulk of Tony and Loki's physical interactions have been initiated by _Tony?_ Of course, Loki seldom finds cause to complain about or reject such interactions, and Tony _was_ the one to fall in love first, but the point is this – between the two of them, _Tony_ is the one who's holding and kissing and touching and _doing_ most of the time, and that suddenly makes Loki feel very inferior for some obscure reason, and then he's conflicted and self-loathing and in a funk like he normally is, and wait – _what_ exactly did he want to do again, and why was it a source of emotional discord to him?

"You're thinking," Tony remarks, breaking Loki out of his self-imposed reverie. Tony's not looking at him when he says that, and hasn't _been_ looking at him since he turned back to his computer, and as a result, Loki isn't sure how the man picked up on his state of mind so accurately.

"How'd you know that?" Loki asks, tilting his head just slightly and shifting so that he might look at Tony more directly. Tony doesn't so much as twitch in response, and the gaze he has trained on his monitor doesn't falter for even a second.

"There's a certain kind of quiet you get when you start thinking," Tony replies like he's known the answer to Loki's question long before it was even asked. His head tips back a bit as he adds, "And you get really still and tense."

It's then when Loki realizes that he's holding himself rather carefully where he lies, then when he starts to make a conscious effort to relax and breathe easier (mostly because he's hurting his knee when he's all stiff and constrained). He's only partially successful in this endeavor.

"Don't you ever stop doing that?" Tony asks, playful and insolent but with an edge of seriousness Loki doesn't fail to miss – an edge that prevents Loki from finding the comment particularly funny. The man chuckles briefly as he glances at Loki, and his perky expression only falters imperceptibly when he sees the somber look on his face.

"I think the universe as we know it would collapse if I did," Loki replies with a wry little smile.

"_I _think all that _philosophizing_, or whatever, is bad for your health," Tony counters, turning to face Loki fully and inclining his head towards him, as brazen and self-satisfied as ever. A smirk plays on his lips as he goes on, "And by '_philosophizing_', I mean _thinking yourself into a migraine_. And you hold a lot of tension in your forehead when you're stressed…" – his arms shoot out without warning, and Loki blinks in surprise when he finds his jaws clasped in Tony's palms, his temples warm beneath the man's fingers, and his body's semi-subconscious responses to the storm running rampant in his mind suddenly common knowledge (to _Tony_, at least) – "… I imagine that makes for _a lot_ of headaches."

Loki swallows thickly, abruptly self-conscious (even though he _shouldn't_ be, even though this is Tony and it's _okay_ that he's aware of this, even though Tony knows more about him than _anyone_, and _hey_ – even if he _isn't_ all that knowledgeable about his past aside from the fact that his family has been absolutely _awful_ to him for the most part and that Thor and his father crafted the complete and utter mess that is his psyche the way master artists create works of art, Tony knows his personality and his ways better than he does his own). An abstract sort of smallness comes over him when he says, a bit quietly, "It does."

Tony's expression softens at that before growing slightly, suspiciously cheeky. Right before Loki decides to question the change, the man removes his hands from his face, his fingers leaving heated little trails in their wake, and hums, "_I _know when you stop thinking."

A seedling of fear sprouts in Loki's heart at that for some reason (stupid, _stupid_, _**stupid**_), and he isn't thinking when he asks, impulsive and ironically mindless, "When's that?"

Instead of answering the query definitively – like _normal_ people do – Tony just gives him a brief, toothy smile and leans over and kisses him on the mouth again, and even though there's a great deal of inner monologue occupying Loki's head at the moment, he can't really seem to hear it when he's focusing on parting his lips just enough to be coy and sultry for Tony and when Tony's teeth are grazing over the inside of his bottom lip and when it takes nearly all of his energy simply to time his breathing _just right_ for this kiss, and then he's not thinking _at all_ and Tony is parting his lips even further and their tongues are pushing against each other and he suddenly wants to be so much _closer_ so he starts to move towards Tony and _there_ – that crazy, stinging pain in his knee is what stops him with a sharp, breathy groan, and that's when all these _thoughts_ pile onto him again, and Tony is laughing at him, and he isn't sure whether he should be pissy about being so _easily _tempted or totally _beside himself_ with feeling, so he just goes with the latter because it'll look better in hindsight and chuckles right along with his boyfriend, enjoys the feeling of the man's breath on his lips as he concedes a somewhat pleased, "Nailed it."

Tony seems to like his response quite a bit, because his grin is steadily widening and his laugh is growing sugary and he's moving to kiss Loki _**again**_, and it occurs to Loki then that if he just made out with Tony all the time, he'd never be troubled with any of his fantastically gloomy thoughts again. Is that a good thing? He's not entirely certain, but the idea is so exquisitely perfect that he can't find it in himself to care that much.

"Hey, do you want to watch a movie?" Tony asks him as soon as he's pulled away with a quiet, damp smack, all out of the blue and accompanied with the sort of impulsive childishness that's impossible not to find endearing and so ridiculously _Tony_ that Loki almost wants to say '_no_' just so Tony can stay right where he is and kiss him some more.

But his rationality (goddamn it to _hell_, his rationality, that thing that's saved his life time after time and made the world a worse – but infinitely more organized – place to live) and his legitimate desire to watch something prevents him from doing much more than shrugging his shoulders and letting out a small, "Sure."

Tony gives him a parting smile of sorts before he's swiftly shutting his laptop and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "What do you want to put on?" he asks, already starting for the door. He seems to suddenly remember something when he's halfway there, though, because he pauses for just an instant and then begins to move in a completely different direction, towards his duffel bag where it sits on the floor next to Loki's bookshelf.

"Uhm, would you mind _Moulin Rouge!_ too terribly?" Loki questions, his tone half-distracted as he watches Tony bend over – the man's shirt riding up his back as he does – briefly poke around in his bag, and eventually retrieve his DS from earlier. That's when Loki remembers his grudging promise to play with the team Tony made him.

"I think I love you just enough to endure the senseless romance and unnecessary musical numbers," Tony jests, smirking playfully and walking over to toss his DS into Loki's lap.

Loki instinctively takes the console into his hands and squeezes it a bit between his fingers. He has his eyes on the Pikachu sticker that's on the verge of peeling off of the top cover of the DS when he asks, "And how much is '_just enough_'?"

Without warning, Tony's lips are pressing against Loki's forehead, and Loki only ends up looking up in time to catch his boyfriend jogging out of the room, replying, "Enough to give you that."

It doesn't take Loki long to realize what Tony means by that. Adorably affectionate kisses and the like are things Tony reserves for him and him alone; he'd _never_ be so tender with _anyone_ else. Loki has a moment like the one he had yesterday afternoon then, one where he feels light and perfect and sore all at once, and his lips twitch ever so slightly as he powers Tony's DS on and waits for the Start screen.

Tony's reply gains new meaning when Loki gets a look at the team he assembled specially for him – a team that includes six of his favorite Poke̒mon – and therefore most likely took quite awhile to put together and/or evolve (keep in mind that Tony has the attention span of a small child) – and all with names Loki vaguely recognizes as foreign words for love: a Charizard named Pyāra, a Mightyena named Ai, an Espeon named Meilė, a Ninetales (a _**Ninetales**_) named Agapi, a Weavile named Elsker (a term Loki used to see in his father's books somewhat often), and a Mismagius named Amour.

And then – at almost six in the afternoon on a Saturday night and with a sprained knee and both his brother, an immensely popular linebacker and the quite possibly the most well-liked person at EU after Steve, and his boyfriend, an equally popular functioning alcoholic who's pretty much equivalent to James Dean in charisma, rebelliousness, and legendary status, occupying his home – Loki starts to cry over Tony's Nintendo DS, and he isn't crying tears that are fat and ugly and so natural to him it's cruel, but the little kind that just sit on top of your eyelids until they overflow, the kind that are sweet instead of angry or bitter or melancholy.

Tony returns – DVD in hand – just as Loki is wiping his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. He stops still in the doorway as soon as he sees him, and they watch each other for several long, half-comfortable seconds, almost mystified and maybe even a little bashful (on Loki's part, anyways), before Tony notes, "You're crying," like Loki totally couldn't tell himself.

Loki simply nods in response.

Instead of raising hell like Loki half-expected him to, Tony just smiles a complacent little smile and goes on to pop _Moulin Rouge!_ into the DVD player hooked up to Loki's TV, self-satisfied in a way he almost never is, in a way that totally _isn't_ egotistic for once, in a way he'll only ever be when he's made Loki cry happy tears and he doesn't feel like a total shit about himself.

Loki sings along with every number and Tony kisses him way too much for him to follow the plot as much as he would otherwise, but that doesn't matter, because it's what Loki wanted all along and he has six new Poke̒mon that are all named 'love' and he and Thor actually kind of got along today and he's had a really lovely afternoon, considering everything. Yeah. A really, _really_ lovely afternoon.

* * *

_**Sunday, October 16**__**th**__** at 5:45 PM.**_

The sound of approximately one-hundred and fifty-five pounds of muscle, genius, and sassy alcoholic falling on the ground – a sound that consists more of a breathless, "_Fuck!_" than anything else – is what makes Loki open his eyes, sit up, and survey the scene before him. He finds Tony sprawled out in the middle of his backyard, grass and dirt plastered to the soles of his bare feet, and Fenrir galloping around him with his tail wagging happily and his ears tall and perky. An amused smile immediately overtakes his face as he watches Tony roll onto his side with a melodramatic groan.

"I'm done for, milady," Tony cries, all histrionic and stupid and characteristically _Tony_. He lets out a quiet '_oof_' when Fenrir steps on his chest, then begins to laugh as the husky licks at his chin and jaws and adds, "The beast has conquered me!"

"'_Milady'_?" Loki questions, putting his sunglasses on top of his head and hooking his hands over the edge of his lawn chair. Before he decided to lay back and take a siesta, he'd been watching Tony run around his yard with Fenrir in his place, seeing as he's (unfortunately) not at liberty to do such a thing and the husky was in desperate need of some physical activity. Now, he's '_milady_', and Sir Tony is apparently _exhausted_ from his duel.

"Yeah, because you're totally graceful and like… _eloquent_, or whatever," Tony replies, peeking around Fenrir's muzzle at Loki and absently rubbing his hands up and down the dog's (or dragon's – same difference) neck.

"Forty percent of my vocabulary is composed entirely of expletives, Tony," Loki argues with a slight smirk. "And my knee is sprained because I QWOP'ed my ass across the patio. That doesn't sound _graceful_ to me."

"_I _think you're graceful," Tony throws in, scratching his fingers through the thick fur on Fenrir's scruff. "You dance really great and you don't walk like an elephant."

Loki just stares at Tony for a few lengthy seconds, vainly attempting to puzzle out Tony's logic, before he decides it's not worth the strain and quips, "I guess that settles it, then."

"Of course it does," Tony chuckles, just as whimsical as he can be. He pushes his upper body up and off of the ground, spends a moment or two playfully tussling with Fenrir, then crawls across the yard and onto the patio and just _drapes_ himself across Loki's lap, his elbows at either side of the man's hips and his chin level with his sternum. Loki lets out a quiet laugh when Tony kisses his chest through the fabric of his _Star Wars_ t-shirt, moves his hands to rest atop his boyfriend's shoulders just as the man asks, "Did you have a good nap?"

"I didn't actually fall asleep, so I guess not," Loki acknowledges with a tiny, inconsequential sigh.

Tony's expression turns a tad contrite just before the sound of four – _four_ – car doors slamming within microscopic time intervals of each other catches both his and Loki's attentions, and after the initial moment of acknowledgment has passed between them, something like disappointment settles over their heads like a thick cloud of fog or a disgruntled wooly mammoth.

"Oh, _great_," Tony grumbles sarcastically, pulling away from Loki and moving to stand up. "Your _court_ has arrived."

Loki can't help but scowl a bit at that, can't help but glower at the bright red paint beneath his toes and let out a rather insincere, "I'm _thrilled_," in response.

"Then I'm sure you can imagine how _I _feel," Tony huffs, not quite snapping at him, but with a self-entitled kind of irritation that Loki can hear plainly and clearly in his voice and instinctively _know_ that he's rapidly evolving into one of the more aggressive, arrogant subspecies of human.

In case you're wondering what's going on (and you _should_ be), today is the day Fandral planned to swoop on in and prepare a meal in light of Loki's injury, and Fandral's presence automatically necessitates the presence of Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun, and _their_ collective presence typically puts Thor in the annoyingly overjoyed, top dog sort of mood that rubs Loki exactly the wrong way, and such a situation means that the nostalgic, feel-good, slightly ephemeral bond Loki and Thor have shared over the past twenty-four hours or so and the summery strain of romance Loki and Tony have been getting high on is going to have to take the backseat to absolute chaos for the rest of the afternoon, and _all_ of this conspires to have Loki just this shy of _pull-his-own-hair-out_ anxious and turn Tony into the most absurdly territorial creature on the face of the planet. Awesome, right?

"Can you hand me my crutches, please?" Loki asks instead of addressing Tony's semi-hostile comment, because he knows if he _does_ say anything about it, he and Tony are probably going to get in an argument, and if they get into an argument right before all hell breaks loose, he just may kill himself before the night is up.

And see, Loki is acutely aware of the fact that not only is Tony pissy on _his_ behalf – considering his less-than-friendly feelings towards Thor's posse – but he's also displeased with what he perceives as an infringement on his territory (his territory being Loki, mind you), and he's _also_ the slightest, most irrational bit _cross_ with Loki _himself_ for letting this happen and not throwing a fit of grand proportions like he probably would have liked him to, and he's _**also**_jealous of the quartet that will be entering his world in just a few moments, jealous of the fact that they (mostly Fandral) can provide Loki with something that he _can't_ – a home-cooked meal. And that just makes Loki even _more_ nervous about this whole ordeal, because even though he could care _less_ about whether or not his boyfriend can cook something more complex than instant macaroni and cheese, he understands that Tony places a lot of priority on being his big bad alpha male and lacks self-awareness as well as self-esteem, and if he doesn't tread carefully or manage to be both straight and affectionate with the man, this evening could crumble to pieces and there's a legitimate possibility that Tony could run away from him (keep in mind that Tony is _exceptionally _good at running away from people; he wouldn't be here with Loki if he wasn't). That's something he can't afford to happen.

Unsurprisingly, Tony doesn't acquiesce to his request, but instead of being a total asshole like Loki more than expects him to, this all-knowing, all-seeking grin overtakes his expression and he starts to loom over Loki in a way that's moderately uncomfortable and yet not entirely unwelcome, and Loki doesn't have time to start to deflect whatever Tony plans to throw his way before the man is chuckling, "How about a much less painful mode of transportation, hm?"

And then, without any sort of forewarning, Tony gets his arms under Loki's thighs and across his back side, and it's all Loki can do to wrap his arms around Tony's neck and hold on as tightly as he possibly can in time for his chair to disappear from beneath him. A sharp laugh-cry escapes him when Tony swings him around in a tight, playful circle, and Tony is practically _humming_ with amusement and nosing into the hollow of his cheek even as he's hissing, "Tony, _stop!_"

"Why would I want to do that?" Tony challenges with a whisper of a smile, holding Loki tightly in his grasp.

"Maybe because I have a sprained knee and it hurts when you swing me like that?" Loki replies, and despite his every intention to be just as belligerent and pugnacious as he can be, his words come out halfhearted and involuntarily spirited. He even _chuckles_ a little as he adds, "You talk about a _less painful_ mode of transportation…"

"Hey, I'm sorry," Tony soothes, turning him a bit more mindfully this time. He carefully shifts Loki into a more comfortable position, smirks just slightly when his hand slips over the curve of his shoulder and down across his chest, then moves to kiss the bridge of his nose, mumbling, "I must've lost my head."

Loki lets out a soft, yielding breath and leans into Tony's kiss without thinking. He's halfway to laughing again when he replies to Tony's apology with a quiet, self-conscious, "Ditto," and when Tony gives him a puzzled look, he only cranes his neck and presses his lips to the man's jaw in response.

Coincidentally, Thor, Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun materialize quite visibly _in the kitchen_ just as that rather tender display of affection is taking place, and as a consequence, whatever illusion of privacy Loki and Tony might have had before comes crumbling almost violently apart. Loki only keeps his eyes on Thor for a second after he's arrived, but he still gets the brunt of all the discomfort and disapproval radiating off of the man; no amount of forced ignorance or reinforced glass would be able to dilute _that_ tenor of emotion.

More urgently, however, Loki surprises himself by actually getting _embarrassed _about Thor and his friends finding him this way. He's not sure whether his shame stems from the fact that the expectations of others have recreated him into a being that – according to the laws of society – _shouldn't be_ in a relationship, the fact that he's in a vulnerable position and Thor and his posse can see it, or the fact that he's suddenly on the borderline between two facets of himself – one that Tony dictates and one that Thor brings out of him. The distinction between these three reasons really doesn't matter all that much, though, because Loki is embarrassed regardless, and unless Tony puts him down _immediately_ or Thor White and the Four Dwarves spontaneously cease to exist, he's not going to _stop_ being embarrassed any time soon.

"I think I'd be better off limping," Loki fudges, political as ever. He looks to Tony as he says that, and, to his great misfortune, he finds himself faced with the expression of a man determined to conquer or destroy everything in his path, a man who in all likeliness _will not_ put him down, and most importantly, a man who will probably sabotage his evening if he doesn't do anything to stop him. He's seen this expression on Tony's face before in the past, and almost _every_ single time, he's ended up with a mess of some sort on his hands. Needless to say, he's fucking _terrified_.

"Oh, _no_," Tony purrs (_**purrs**_) in reply, shaking his head defiantly and just as doggish as he's always been. "And run the risk of you hurting yourself again?"

"You're more likely to accidentally drop me on the concrete than I am to injure myself, Tony," Loki points out, but Tony has long since made up his mind about this, and he makes that outstandingly clear when he _feigns to __**dump him on the ground**_, effectively drawing a rather undignified, rather mortifying _shriek_ from Loki's throat. Loki instinctively tightens his arms around Tony and curls into the man's chest despite the fact that he wants nothing more than to cave his fucking _face_ in, and then Tony is just throwing his head back and letting out a full-blown, altogether tooamused _laugh_, and Thor and Sif and Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun are watching this whole thing as it's happening, watching frigid, angry, wild-animal-sort-of-ferocious Loki Skywalker cower and cling to obnoxious, insane, literally-the-biggest-asshole-you've-ever-met Tony Stark, watching Loki be _himself_ (or at least the part of himself that should be mostly private), and Loki thinks he might start crying or screaming or _exploding_ or something right then and there because of it, because of _them_ ('_them_' including Tony, by the way).

Of course, it hasn't quite registered to _anyone_ yet that Loki is on the verge of a nervous breakdown – not even _Tony_ with all his empathy where his significant other is concerned – and instead of paying any mind to Loki's bizarre shortness of breath or the half-silent _whimpers_ that are coming out of him (which he's probably writing off as mere melodrama, considering Loki's personality), Tony just leans over and brushes their lips together and says, "Now, where'd you get an idea like _that?_"

Loki can only let out a whispered, indistinct curse before Tony's advancing towards the kitchen, and then his heart is flying straight out of his chest and a sizable chunk of his self-control is falling to pieces, and then they're inside, and he's vulnerable and just _inches_ away from having an anxiety attack, and Tony is using him (oh my _God_, he's _**using**_ him) to make a scene for no good reason, and they're actually all in the same room together – all seven of the most ridiculous people to grace the halls of Elysian University – and Thor and Fandral and Sif are staring at Loki and Tony with nervousness plastered all over their faces, and Loki suddenly remembers for what has to be the sixth time in the past _two minutes_ that his boyfriend is a fucking _**asshole**_ when the man lets loose a vaguely confrontational, '_dare you to say something, bitch_' sort of, "_Hey_."

That's the moment when Loki says, as calmly as he's able, "Please put me down."

"But you can't _walk_, babe," Tony replies almost immediately, and the way he utters the word '_babe_', the way he practically _savors_ it as it comes out of his stupid, _stupid_ fucking mouth, the way he breathes it into the space between he and Loki's faces makes this whole exchange a brazenly deliberate act of seduction, and this is how Tony talks to Loki when they're _in bed_ – _not_ standing in the middle of Loki's kitchen with his brother and his brother's dreadful friends – and _mother__**fuck**_ if that doesn't make Loki want to _throttle_ this man (or at least sucker-punch him in the teeth).

Loki's expression must reflect all of the fury and hurt and anxiety running rampant inside him, because when he looks Tony straight in the face and simply repeats himself with an abortive, "Please," something in Tony's demeanor changes and the man carefully steadies him on his feet without a word of protest.

A cloud of uneasiness settles over the room the instant Loki is standing, knee bent uncomfortably and hands still on Tony's shoulders, and for several unbearable seconds, all anyone can do is stare at each other with imaginary question marks floating over their heads. All Loki has to do is take in the struggle in Tony's eyes and the tension in Thor's shoulders and he's starting to lose himself in a faint haze of hyperventilation and scrambled thoughts – a haze that's only half-broken by a question coming from somewhere to his left: "You okay, Loki?"

It turns out that _Fandral_ is the one asking him this, and Loki is so dazed with apprehension that it doesn't even occur to him that such concern from _him_ – the person who has been sexually harassing him for over _two years_ now – of all people is unusual, unprecedented. Instead, he turns to the man and replies, "I'm fine," even though it's obvious to _everyone_ in the room that he's _miles_ from being fine, even though anyone paying close enough attention to him would be able to tell that he's shaking the slightest bit, even though his gaze is wide and unfocused enough to be legitimately worrisome, even though he's supporting himself on _one __**fucking**__ leg _–

And that would be Loki limping his sorry ass right on out of the kitchen, ladies and gentlemen. He has to grasp every piece of furniture he can get his hands on to make it there, but he manages to survive this wordless journey without falling and busting his head on the tile or getting swept off of his feet by Captain Boyfriend or Brother Bear (thank _God_), manages to get himself horizontal and alone and in one piece on the sanctuary that is his sofa – a wonderful place where he can stare at the ceiling without actually seeing it and pretend to not have a panic attack.

You can tell he has stellar ideas, can't you?

Speaking of these such ideas, while Loki is in the process of trying to regulate his breathing and bring himself down from borderline hysteria, he engages himself in the insanely therapeutic activity known as _giving oneself a mental ass-kicking_. Since when did the idea of the combined personalities of Thor's posse plus Tony's very _presence_ seem _okay_ to him? Since when was it alright to trust himself with making decisions like these? Since when was running across his patio in the rain to catch his dog a safe thing to do? Since when was simply _existing_ in a world like this _ever_ a good option? These are the sorts of questions Loki consistently fails to answer when it counts, my friend.

Loki is halfway to being vaguely alright again when the sound of footsteps brushing against the carpet registers to him, and he can tell by the rhythm of each footfall that it's Tony who's come to break him out of his partially-formed reverie. He isn't sure whether he feels angry or indifferent, so he decides on the former emotion because it's most like him to react in such a way to the mere _sound_ of another human being (most _especially_ a human being that's responsible for ruining his mood).

"Loki?" Tony's voice comes asking – not particularly quietly, but muted and carefully enough for Loki to know that the man is aware he's treading on ice that's at least some kind of thin.

Loki doesn't really know how to answer the not-question, but he opens his mouth and waits for something to come out of it nonetheless. "That's my name," is what his sharp, biting reply ends up being.

This nearly imperceptible, ticked-off sort of sigh comes out of Tony then, and that's all Loki needs to hear to realize they're about to have an argument. Instantly, he's on the verge of panicking again, and his nerves are completely _shot_, and he's appreciating the luxury of not having to look Tony in the face for as long as he possibly can before the man is suddenly right next to him, gazing down at him from where he stands beside the sofa, and _well_, I wouldn't be lying if I told you that Loki feels like his heart is trying to plow its way out of his ribcage right now, and all because of the half-cross, half-confused look in his boyfriend's eyes.

"You're upset," Tony notes, lowering himself to the floor and folding his legs Indian-style so that he might have a conversation with Loki at eye level. How _considerate_.

Instead of ejecting something characteristically confrontational and harsh (because he really, _really_, _**really**_ doesn't feel like fighting with Tony and he doesn't want to be right enough to convince himself it's worth it to do so), Loki simply nods in response. After a moment, though, his irritation takes hold of him long enough to squeeze a sarcastic little, "I agree," out of him. He's good at making decisions, can't you tell?

"And just _why_ are you upset?" Tony half-sighs, his tone thick with the sort of tired exasperation Loki wants to punch him in the face for, because _no_, he has absolutely _no right_ to be fucking _frustrated_ about this, and he's the one that wanted to start this relationship in the first place, and he can't just immediately start acting like he's totally blameless when he's not even clear about why Loki's so distressed (but he always, _always_ will, considering that he's _Tony Stark_).

Loki levels a dark glare at Tony, one that's somewhere around '_oh __**hell**__ to the no_' on the _What the Fuck Did You Just Say to Me?_ Scale, and his voice is taut and clipped like it only ever is when he's trying to combat the kind of feigned stupidity both Thor and Tony like to throw his way when he replies, "Uh, maybe because you decided to make a show out of me?"

"What are you talking about?" Tony asks, still insistent on playing the fool.

"I'm talking about the fucking _panic attack_ I had out there!" Loki retorts, hastily pushing himself up into a sitting position. "I'm talking about the fact that you decided to just parade on into the kitchen with me all helpless and broken in your arms because you _had_ to prove that you were so much better than they are!"

"Loki, that's something I don't even have to _try_ to prove," Tony snorts, and Loki nearly balks at the sheer arrogance of his words (because even for Tony, that was ridiculously cocky – almost _repulsively_ so, and keep in mind that Loki _likes_ the man for his pride). He brings his arms up to fold his hands behind his shoulders, his wiry biceps flexing with the action (and _dammit_, Loki _isn't_ supposed to be attracted to him when they're in the middle of an argument), and asks, so suddenly and so confrontationally, "Why are you defending _them?_"

A weird, interesting thought burrows into the pocket of Loki's subconscious, then, a thought that makes him uncomfortable and mystified and infinitely more pissed off than he was in the first place, a thought that's more or less along the lines of, _This is the man I'm having sex with_. That eventually evolves into, _I'm arguing with the man I'm having sex with, _and, _I want to punch the man I'm having sex with in the face,_ and, _Why is it possible that I could be so __**angry**__ at the man I'm having sex with?_, and _of course_, Tony is much _more_ than just the oft-mentioned man he's having sex with, but the idea that Loki is literally _centimeters_ away from being _furious_ at the one person with which he's ever had the staggeringly beautiful physical connection that can only be experienced when you're in an intimate relationship with someone is, for whatever reason, _blowing his mind_. And that – as I said before – just has him even more exasperated than he was already.

"I'm _not_ defending them," Loki carefully chews out, nearly _laughing_ with anger as he balls his hands into tight little fists he's only half-sure he's not going to go throwing at his boyfriend's _nose_ or something.

"Then what _are_ you doing?" Tony counters without missing a beat, voice harder and eyes sharper, _darker_, rolling upwards for the most loathsome split-second, and Lord have _mercy_ on this poor man's soul (or his face, which is going to get caved the _fuck_ in if he doesn't stop being so rude).

"I'm calling you out on your shit is what I'm doing!" Loki snaps. It seems like Tony actually _looks_ at him for the first time since the onset of their conversation, then, like he finally, _finally_ sees him, because his gaze gets all focused on his face (which is most likely red and warped with wrath right now) in a way it wasn't before the instant the word '_shit_' flies out of Loki's mouth, and in the brief, near-atomic moment before Tony can school his expression into something as hard and as oh-so-fucking _appalled_ as he'd like it to be, a trace of shame flashes in his eyes, and that's almost enough to make Loki forget why the hell he's so furious in the first place.

Almost.

"I'm in pain, Tony," he concedes after a long, heavy silence, a silence in which he valiantly attempts to make himself softer, gentler, just as deliciously vulnerable and open as Tony likes him to be, because maybe if he presents himself as the broken little bird Tony wants to hold and love and never, ever scream at or even begin to think of as a bitch or a shrew, the man will hear him just as much as he sees him. Loki swallows thickly, watches the gradual breakdown of Tony's passion behind the six-feet thick glass of his eyes. "I'm physically incapacitated. I can't do anything but wait for you, or for Thor, or for anyone else who will give their time to me." He gestures to the kitchen with a careful jerk of his head. "They're giving their time to me. They're doing something nice for me. And I know that I don't care much for them and I know you don't care much for them and you know I don't care much for them, but I need almost all the help I can get, sweetheart."

"But, baby," Tony interjects just as Loki is punctuating that statement, inching closer to the sofa and grasping one of Loki's slim, pale hands in an uncharacteristic, desperate display of what? Intimacy? Devotion? Everything so far from anything Tony's ever had with anyone before Loki? "What about me? What about..." – he pauses, out of his element – "... what about what I can give you?"

There it is – the insecurity that Tony is usually so talented at shoving behind a mask of certainty and playful insolence, the insecurity that Loki wants nothing more than to kiss away or shove to the side because it honestly has _no_ business being cramped up in Tony's subconscious like it is, the insecurity that only makes everything more complicated and really _doesn't_ do anyone _any_ good. And Loki can see that such insecurity threading its way into the fabric of Tony's expression as he shakes his head, looks away, and adds, partially to himself, "No, no. This is the way it's supposed to be."

"What do you mean?" Loki asks, feeling exceptionally dumb as the question passes between his lips. A shock of terror takes hold of him for the split-second in which he waits for Tony's answer – an answer that happens to be just as awful as he anticipated it'd be, an answer that's so, _so_ outrageously _wrong_ (but so, _so_ painfully _right_).

"I mean that I'm not good enough for you," Tony replies much too quickly, not daring to look Loki in the face when his words leave him. He doesn't see the way Loki's heart breaks all over his face and down deep in the cavern of his chest when he says that, doesn't see the war raging inside him, and for several seconds, all Loki can do is stare at his boyfriend and let his spirit die a rapid, miserable death, because _fuck_ – there's no easy way out of this one, not in the long run. He can't take Tony to bed and make everything alright, can't kiss him at football games and tell him stories from his childhood and expect him to feel important anymore, because in all actuality, Tony became as important as he thought he possibly could the moment he started being Loki's significant other. If he's capable of being inadequate even _then_, when he's as great as he _can_ get, there's nearly _nothing_ that's going to make him feel significant – not anymore.

And see, Tony _is_ good enough for Loki – when it comes to loving him unconditionally and illuminating his days and setting his soul on fire and kissing-touching-fucking him senseless, that is. But let's face it – he's not the best at giving Loki an ample amount of much-needed space or being more than simply aggressive or sardonic about his _own_ feelings or exercising empathy where other people (most especially Thor) are concerned, and even though _that's okay_ and even though Loki can _live_ with that at this point in time (because more than _anything_, love is being satisfied with the mere existence of another person – no expectations, no end-user license agreement), Tony will _never_ be able to accept that, at least not fully.

For about the hundredth time this week, Loki realizes that even though he and Tony haven't altered the way they interact with each other or even their habits and tendencies, their relationship has changed so _radically_ since they decided to be an item – and all because they've been labeled as being _together_. This is part of what terrified him so much in the first place.

"Tony..." Loki starts to say, but that's about as far as he can get before he loses his breath and is forced to just sit and stare at the space between them, which is suddenly unbearable and heavy and humid and _shit_, how did things get so emotional so damn _fast?_

(Well, this _is_ Loki's life we're talking about.)

It doesn't take long for Tony to decide it's alright to kiss Loki – a move that's both warranted and wholeheartedly desired on both sides of the equation that is their existing in this moment. It's an unusual kiss – soft enough to be considered gentle, yet solid and assertive in a way only Tony can pull off with all his tough tenderness and penchant for behaving like a human oxymoron, and when the man pulls away, all Loki wants is to turn back time and relive that fleeting moment in which they were _okay_, when they weren't trying to argue each other down or _breathe_ or do anything other than _be_ together, but he _can't_ – he can only try to get out what he was trying to say before.

"You _are_ good enough for me," is what comes tumbling from Loki's lips once they're (unfortunately) free of Tony's, and _immediately_, he can see in the way Tony's eyes tighten and the way his shoulders tense that he's writing his off words as halfhearted and vain (in an '_oh, you're just __**saying**__ that_' sort of way, mind you), and when he starts to pull away, avert his gaze and turn from him and recoil in his discomfort (because _no_, Tony will more than likely _never_ be okay with getting down and dirty with his feelings or his shortcomings), Loki grabs him by the wrist and _yanks_ him, effectively planting the man's attention firmly on him with a somewhat desperate, somewhat _panicked_, "_Listen_ to me, Tony."

Tony's gaze, hard and obstinate and afraid, lands on his; a sliver of triumph worms its way into the forefront of Loki's mind.

"You _are_," Loki reiterates in a moderately calmer tone, watching as Tony's features gradually soften and gel and feeling the tension in the man's arm evaporate beneath his hand. He lets a beat of silence sit between them, then, lets his words sink in and make an impression on Tony before he goes on any further, before he adds, "Granted, you're one of the most obnoxious and ridiculous people I've ever met, and sometimes I feel like I might just _yank my hair out_ when I'm around you..." – that garners an uneasy chuckle and a sheepish, self-deprecating smile for the ages from Tony (a lovely breakthrough, a _victory_) – "... but I'll be damned if I'd have you any other way or if that makes you worth any less to me."

Tony is still chewing around the reluctant smirk plastered on his face by the time Loki has said that, still fighting with his expression as he grumbles, half-hearted and mostly-playful, "You're only saying that because you think I need to hear it."

(And you know, I'd just like to point out that Tony doesn't _really_ think that Loki is bullshitting him. In fact, he's almost _never_ thought that, not since the day the two of them decided to establish a genuine friendship with one another. In this particular instance, it's a _blessing_ rather than a curse that the man doesn't believe in his own words, wouldn't you say?)

"I'm saying it because it's _true_, you asshole," Loki retorts just this side of irritably. Something a whole lot like love has his own lips quivering the slightest bit when Tony laughs again, more enthusiastically this time, and _Lord_, if that doesn't warm him to his core, if that doesn't make him want to shoot himself in the face for ever getting upset with Tony in the first place (never mind that he had a pretty legitimate reason to be pissed off with the man), and it only takes a moment for him to succumb to the increasingly familiar urge to smile, for him to give Tony's wrist an affectionate little squeeze, for him to point out with the sort of Hallmark wisdom he rarely if ever feels comfortable with verbalizing, "If our flaws made us unlovable, do you really think we'd be where we are now?"

"Alright, _alright_," Tony huffs, unceremoniously masking his embarrassment with exasperation and rocking up onto his knees to press a kiss to the soft skin at the corner of Loki's mouth. His expression is quickly transitioning to its default state of effortless insolence and pseudo-nonchalance when he leans back and groans, "I get it, _Aesop_."

Loki releases Tony's wrist to smack him playfully on the shoulder, chuckles, "I'm _serious_, Tony." He lowers his back down onto the sofa once more, letting himself get comfortable with his cranium pillowed in his arms and his muscles nice and loose. His eyes remain on his boyfriend's as he adds, "But I meant what I said, about _them_." – he gestures with his head in the general direction of the kitchen – "As much as it pains me to admit it, I _need_ their help, and it's just my luck that they're willingly giving it to me. You can't do everything all by yourself, you know."

"Oh, yeah?" Tony snorts without any of the heat Loki half-expected from him, scooting forward so that his front is flush against the couch and crossing his arms nearly on top of Loki's middle. "Who says?"

Loki's smile is gentle and only a tad bit patronizing when he replies, "_I_ do." At Tony's pinched expression, he notes, "You're just a man after all."

A quiet, virtually imperceptible sigh leaves Tony, then, and Loki takes a fraction of a second to marvel at the peculiar smallness his boyfriend takes on at times. "I'm _your _man," Tony murmurs into the gauzy air around his mouth, mostly to Loki, but to himself, as well.

(It's amazing how _childish_ that man can be, isn't it?)

And Loki doesn't want to remind Tony that he loves him. He really doesn't. He thinks that it's a little fucking ridiculous that he should _have_ to, _especially_ since the fact that he loves the man _at all_ doesn't seem to do anything to deter any of the self-deprecation entrenched deep within him. But the look on Tony's face has him feeling somewhat foolish, so he leans his head back and closes his eyes and lets out a whispered, impossibly sincere, "Of course you are."

Tony only hums in response.

* * *

Of course, that little heart-to-heart simply turns out to be the calm before the storm (and when I say '_storm_', I'm referring to, in most explicit terms, an argument more dreadful and explosive than a goddamn _hydrogen bomb_, a full-blown panic attack – complete with all the uncontrollable sobbing and shortness of breath they tell you about on the label – and a much-awaited breaking point), and – because, lest you forget, this is _Loki's_ life we're chronicling – all the things Loki feared would happen (namely Tony turning into King of the Jackasses and Thor White and the Four Dwarves awakening the partially-hidden homicidal urges laying dormant inside him) _happen_. They don't happen _immediately_, though, and that's part of what makes this whole ordeal so awful in the end.

It starts with a rallying cry that comes bellowing from the kitchen wearing Thor's voice – a thunderous, entirely too enthusiastic, "_Time to feast!_" – and a surprised little start from Loki, who had been on the verge of slumber just seconds before (and isn't it a bit noteworthy to point out that he's been sleeping _a lot_ more often than usual ever since he sprained his knee, and much to his own benefit?).

"Holy _shit_," he mutters once he remembers how to breathe correctly, momentarily driving the heel of his palm into his eyes before instinctively looking for Tony (the man has only been with him for _three days_ and he's already learned to expect his presence as soon as he wakes up). Loki finds him with his back pressed against the front of the sofa and his gaze thrown over his shoulder, fixed squarely on his face and laced with an odd combination of amusement and concern. They both smile at each other in unison – Loki with an abnormally generous dose of affection and sheepishness, Tony with barely-concealed satisfaction of the insolent sort.

"I didn't know your brother knew what a word like '_feast_' meant," Tony half-whispers, effectively turning Loki's smile into one of exasperation and grudging delight and earning him a flimsy slap on the shoulder.

"He's not a _Neanderthal_," Loki sighs without nearly as much conviction as he would like, rubbing his hands over his face as he forces himself up into a sitting position. He gradually becomes more and more aware of his surroundings with each passing second – the dimness of the room, the pleasant chill of the air conditioner, the distinct sound of human life (_ugh_) flowing out of the kitchen (i.e.: "_Why the hell are there only four chairs in here?_" "_Ah, you know Loki – he doesn't have that many friends. Why would he need more?_"), the _Jersey Shore_ marathon that's currently streaming on television. Tony leisurely rises to his feet in the midst of his slow-going observation, stretching his arms over his head and running his fingers through his mess of hair and letting his eyes linger on Loki just a tad bit hungrily (which is kind of ridiculous when you consider the fact that Loki has just woken up from an almost-nap and consequently doesn't exactly look any kind of fantastic at the moment).

"You sound so sure of yourself," Tony quips, sarcasm thick in his tone, and before Loki has a chance to come back at him with an equally caustic comment, the man is drawling on, "I'm assuming you're opposed to the idea of me carrying you into the kitchen."

"Don't even think about it," Loki retorts just as soon as Tony has punctuated that statement, gingerly lowering his legs over the edge of the sofa and miraculously managing to train a rather sharp glare on his boyfriend through his discomfort and pain.

Tony lets loose an airy, brazen laugh, then, meeting Loki's glower with a lazy smirk and chuckling, "I can still give you a hand, though, can't I?"

Again, the man doesn't wait for Loki's response before he's springing into action, hooking his hands under Loki's armpits (which are just as sore as can be at this point in time, not to mention incredibly ticklish) and hauling him up onto his feet. The noise that escapes Loki is somewhere between an involuntary giggle and a yelp of pain, and his hands automatically come up to grasp Tony's shoulders, squeeze them tightly, dig his nails into the flesh beneath the man's t-shirt as he tries in vain to stay as bitchy and as unimpressed as he's usually so good at being, but Tony is making that feat an _impossible_ one when he's tickling him ever so slightly and holding him so close and smelling just like Loki loves him to and holding his gaze without any fear or uncertainty or anything but the sort of _want_ that used to scare the living hell out of Loki (and _still_ does, at times like these), and _dammit_, Loki can _physically_ feel the prickliness inside him evaporating beneath Tony's eyes and he's thinking to himself that he _really _needs to learn how to control himself around his boyfriend and that would be a smile playing on his lips right there, teasing Tony, teasing _him_, betraying his reluctantly pleased state of mind and warming the meager bit of space that separates them.

"Could you be _any_ rougher with me?" he asks, and even though he's able to squeeze just the right amount of playful disdain into the question, his words come out a bit too calmly for his liking (not that he's going to _complain_ or anything).

Tony laughs again at that, his voice nothing more than a bone-melting purr when he replies in no uncertain terms, "I can be just as rough as you want me to be, baby."

Loki makes a mental note to himself to hire someone to check up on his air conditioning soon. Oh, wait – it's not faulty AC that has the temperature suddenly so damn _high_ in here, is it?

And then, at the exact instant in which Loki and Tony meet each other halfway for what could quite possibly be the six-thousandth kiss they've shared this past week (believe me when I say they haven't quite figured out how to, you know, _not_ want to jump each other's bones for any substantial period of time since they got together), their lips just barely brushing together and the air between them nonexistent and Tony's hands smoothing down Loki's sides and around to his back and Loki's fingertips pushing none too gently into the muscles in Tony's shoulders – at that _exact_ instant, Thor decides it's a good idea to walk out of the kitchen. And he is promptly faced with the sight of his brother _almost_ making out with the spawn of Lucifer, as far as he's concerned.

"Hey Lo–_oh–_ki," the man stammers, his steps grinding to a comically abrupt halt in the doorway once he realizes exactly what's playing out before him.

And just like that, Loki is suddenly in the mood for anything _but_ kissing and anything _but_ flirting and anything _but_ Tony's hands at the small of his back and the man's breath fanning over his face and his body so close to him he's almost feverish with desire, and he pulls away from Tony so fucking _fast_ it would be hilarious if not for the fact that he nearly falls backward from the force (but, hey – if slapstick is your cup of tea, you go right on ahead and have yourself a good chuckle), turns to face Thor only a little bit _frantically_, and addresses him with a hyper-anxious, almost _biting_, "_What?_"

Thor continues to stare between Loki and Tony like he's witnessing some kind of crude Satanic ritual or natural childbirth for several unbearably long seconds, his brow warped into a borderline _perplexed_ little triangle and his mouth hanging slightly ajar (as if he's never caught Loki and Tony in a compromising position before, and let's not forget that one time he was about a minute and a half away from finding Tony fucking the _brains_ out of Loki), before _something_ (Loki's guardian angel, maybe) compels him to _finally_ say, "Do we... do we have any extra chairs around here?"

You hear that? That's the distinct sound of Tony sucking his teeth _so __**hard**_ Loki can actually _feel_ the pure, unadulterated exasperation and vexation and '_You really disturbed us for some goddamn __**chairs**__?_' radiating off the man in heavy, _violent_ waves, the kind that knock you off your feet and drown little kids on the beach and make Loki nauseous with anxiety. Loki fights the overwhelming urge to sneer.

"There should be some in the storage shed in the backyard," is his mostly-diplomatic response. It occurs to him then that he's about to sit down to dinner with six other people (three of which he absolutely _despises_), and for a moment, he's ready to sigh so deeply he might just _die_ from the lack of oxygen.

It takes Thor only a fraction of a second to turn completely on his heel and haul his ass right on back into the kitchen after Loki has answered his question, absentmindedly tossing a hurried, "Thanks," over his shoulder in his haste to get the _fuck_ out of the room as fast as humanly possible.

(Is this night going to be long, you ask? _Why_, my dear reader – _of course it will._)

Silence looms over the room in Thor's wake for a few uncomfortable moments, tickling the back of Loki's throat and rendering Tony's touch the slightest bit awkward. Loki lets his eyes linger at the doorway, still tracing the phantom outline of his brother, before he turns to Tony, who is regarding him rather intently and has a look of mild irritation and something akin to desperation plastered all over his face. Oh, _boy_.

"What?" Loki echoes, this time with the kind of resigned frustration Tony is used to hearing in his voice at this point (_especially_ since he sprained his knee). The only thing that keeps the query from being too harsh is the glint of warmth and sincerity in his gaze.

Tony's mouth tightens for an instant, and then he replies, "I think that if you'd just moved in with me before all this started, you wouldn't have to deal with shit like this."

And see, Tony says '_you_'. He says, '_you wouldn't have to deal with shit like this_'. What he _means_ – and what Loki hears – is a self-righteous, sanctimonious, unabashedly audacious '_we_'. Loki can barely contain the aggravation that springs up inside him at that (and just in case you're wondering _why_ that ticks him off, consider the fact that people have been masking their own egotism with so-called _concern_ for him his whole life).

"All he wanted were some chairs," he points out in a mildly clipped, '_don't even fucking start with me_' sort of tone. He gives Tony's shoulder a small squeeze, briefly jerks his head towards the kitchen, and adds, "You said you were going to give me a hand, didn't you?"

A hint of a smirk toys with Tony's lips for a second or two, and then he's hooking his arm around Loki's waist, slinging Loki's arm around his neck, shifting their position so that Loki can lean on him as they walk, and pulling Loki flush against his side in a brazen show of possessiveness, of affection. As he guides Loki into the next room, he asks, more mocking than confrontational, "So you're defending him now?"

Loki flicks Tony in the face with his free hand, garnering a snickering laugh out of the man, and replies, "Maybe I'm just point out how much of a baby you're being."

"_Oooh_, I'm hurt, Loki – really, I am," is Tony's sarcastic retort, uttered just as they cross the threshold into the kitchen. His face takes on a decidedly unimpressed expression the instant they're in the room, and Loki decides right then and there that he's more than regretting his decision to let Fandral and his fellow dwarves help him out tonight.

That is, until he notices what's on the table: an assemblage of meats, vegetables, and cheeses accompanied by a plate of tortilla bread – _obviously_ taco fixings – and several bottles of beer plus one singular, thoughtful can of sweet tea. There are no words to describe the struggle taking place inside Loki right now.

Only Sif and Hogun are in the kitchen when Loki and Tony enter, and the little snippet of a conversation they were having before quickly dies out as soon as the two have made their presence known. Loki is careful to not make eye contact with either of them, much preferring to forgo any sort of unnecessary socialization for as long as he feasibly can.

But of course, it's not like he can have his way, right? (The cosmos would most definitely fall apart if he did.)

"You okay, Loki?" Sif asks, forcing Loki to tear his eyes away from the speck of dust he's currently examining to regard her directly. She doesn't look _sympathetic_, exactly, but at least her face isn't the steel mask of '_fuck you_' and '_I'm better than you_' and '_I'm gonna kick your ass if you so much as look at me the wrong way_' it is about sixty percent of the time.

And just as Loki is ejecting an even little, "I'm fine, thanks," Tony is being the obnoxious jackass he is and talking over him, replying to Sif's question (that _was not_ directed at him in the slightest) with an impudent, entirely unnecessary, "He's _fine_."

(Because it's not like Loki was literally _just_ saying that.)

Loki shoots Tony a considerably dirty look for all of about two seconds – two seconds in which Sif schools her expression into something _not_ bitchy, Hogun manages to suppress a laugh in the most inconspicuous manner imaginable, and Tony magically transforms into a gigantic puppy dog, complete with droopy eyes and all the sweetness in the world smeared across his face – before turning back to Sif, giving her the faintest of smiles, and reinforcing the obvious. "I'm alright, Sif. Thank you for being concerned."

Sif shrugs lightly in response, mirroring Loki's not-smile a moment before Thor, Fandral, and Volstagg are charging full steam ahead through the patio door and into the kitchen, lawn chairs in hand and silly, sanguine grins splitting their faces.

(FYI: Let it be known that it is nearly _impossible_ to find Thor in a bad mood or devoid of a reason to be happy when he's around his friends, and that, for all the man's faults, he's probably one of the most joyful, loving, and genial people you could ever meet when it comes to the people he cares about.)

"_Oh boy_, here comes the fire brigade," Tony mutters with all the venomous sarcasm to put down a rhinoceros under his breath (or at least it would _seem_ like he would, if not for the fact that he says it loud enough so that _everyone_ in the room can hear him). He earns a swift, jabbing elbow to the ribs courtesy of Loki for that.

Fortunately, nobody else seems to take offense to the comment (much to Tony's chagrin, probably), and Thor, Volstagg, and Fandral fill the time following it by making quick work of clumsily jamming Loki's seldom-used lawn chairs into the measly little spaces available (note that Loki's dining room table is pretty damn tiny). Fandral's head cocks up about halfway through this ordeal, his eyes abruptly and uncomfortably on Loki, and asks in an unsettlingly open display of friendliness, "You ready to eat, Loki?"

And suddenly, all Loki can hear is this, ricocheting off the back wall of his brain and burrowing deep into the center of his mind – '_Since when did any of you give a shit about me?_'

And again. '_Since fucking __**when**__ did any of you assholes give a shit about __**me**__?_'

But, as luck would have it, that's not what ends up coming out of his mouth. Instead, he meets Fandral's gaze with only half the discomfort he thought he would and quips, just because he can't let his guard down _too_ much lest he ends up crushed or maimed or tremendously damaged in any other way, "As I'll ever be."

Fandral's amicable expression falters for a second. Tony's hand tightens where it's resting against Loki's hip.

Before things can get _too_ unbearably awkward, though, Thor is saving the day (something he's actually remarkably good at doing, by the way) by announcing to everyone present, with his habitually douchey good humor, "Then what the hell are we waiting for?"

And so it goes that Loki, Tony, Thor White, and his four faithful dwarves gather around the too-small dining table and settle down to eat. Loki gets the privilege of sitting in one of the normal, sturdy wooden chairs, thanks to his injury (and his unusual apparent status as the most important person in the room, or whatever), and, rather unsurprisingly, it doesn't take Tony long to take a seat beside him, scoot his chair as close to his as possible without being _too_ outrageously belligerent, and – shit you not – rest a _hand_ on his thigh.

(And if you think Tony's venturing a bit too far into _cantankerous jackass_ territory, I will tell you right now that _one_ – Loki agrees with you wholeheartedly, and _two –_ this is only the beginning.)

Thor plops down into the seat on Loki's other side, Volstagg falling in place beside him, and then Hogun beside Volstagg, and then Fandral beside Hogun, and then Sif beside Fandral, thus completing the crowded little circle around the table. For several minutes, the only sounds in the room are those of tacos being prepared and Fenrir's distant barking from the backyard, and to be totally honest with you, Loki would very much like to keep it that way for the remainder of the night. I mean, it's not like he's raring to get a conversation started with such an intensely varied group of people as this (and when I say '_varied_', I'm only talking about the difference between Thor and his posse and Tony – a difference so palpable that Loki can legitimately feel _electricity_ in the air whenever Thor and Tony so much as _reach across the table for the same thing_), and why would he be?

However, Loki just so happens to be the sole person here who feels that way, and consequently, the dialogue he so dreads explodes upon the table as soon as Thor is halfway through his first bite (**keyword:** _halfway_).

"Oh my _God_, this is fucking _amazing_, Fandral!" the blond exclaims, his words coming out muffled and bulky around the food in his mouth. Loki indulges himself in an internal _cringe_ at the sight.

"I helped," Sif pipes in, emphasizing her words with a raised index finger and an arched eyebrow, but her outburst is mostly overlooked due to the fact that Fandral is ejecting an overly pleased, "Thanks, man," right on top of it. When Loki takes a glimpse at Sif's expression, he doesn't detect any of the crossness or dourness he expected he would, and he briefly muses that maybe she's _accustomed_ to being skipped over (and you know what? – for the tiniest, most _awful_ little moment, he actually feels _bad_ for her).

"Where'd you learn how to cook these?" Thor asks, _still_ chowing down on a mouthful of taco mush (and continuing to disgust Loki as a result). A dopey smile overtakes his face a second after he's voiced that query, and he gestures towards Loki with a casual jerk of his thumb as he adds, "I bet you a lot of money Loki could 'em better than you."

That would be Loki refusing to look up from his plate and stubbornly focusing on swallowing his food and the smell of Tony from where he's all but _pressed_ against his side, because _no_, he's _not_ a part of this discussion and he won't _be_ a part of this discussion until someone asks him a question or personally offends him or slaps him in the face or something like that.

And then Fandral has to go ahead and _do exactly what Loki didn't want him to _and cry, "Oh, _come on!_", turn to face him (oh dear), and _ask him_ (as in, _compel him to respond to a useless and unwanted inquiry_), "D'you like it, Loki?"

Loki has just barely wet his lips to answer before Thor is throwing in, with an astounding amount of seriousness and fervor, "I'm serious, bro! Loki's the _best_ cook I know!"

(Well, _that's_ something Loki's never heard coming out of Thor's mouth before today.)

"Oh, I _bet_ he is," Fandral chuckles in reply, a fair bit of good-natured sarcasm peppering the remark, and it's almost _hilarious_ how quickly Tony tenses at that, his body going still and taut and rigid, and Loki can fucking _feel_ the man holding on to all the breath in his lungs like it's absolutely necessary that he become a human balloon just to show how ridiculously_ offended_ he is by that insignificant little comment. Fandral's eyes find Loki a second time when he asks, "Think you could give me a run for my money?"

And _again_, before Loki can even _begin_ to say anything back to him, someone else is cutting in with some sort of exclamation of their own – this time, it's _Volstagg_. "I say we find out for ourselves!" the man declares, and Loki can hear the phantom noises of a triumphant movie soundtrack underscoring his words as he persists, "When Loki gets better, we should have us all a cook-off and see, eh?"

"I'll tell you now, no joke – Loki's gonna kick your ass," Thor crows, sipping thirstily from his beer bottle and punctuating the half-threat with a heavy gulp.

Fandral laughs openly, _exuberantly_, in a way so unusually down-to-earth and characteristically charming and not at all mocking and _shit_, Loki actually kind of _likes_ the way it sounds before he consciously reminds himself about that one time Fandral backed him into a fucking counter and pretty much _raped_ his mouth (and oh _God_, the thought of the man's lips on his nearly has Loki nauseous with distress, _especially _since Tony's so close to him and _especially_ since Fandral is sitting literally three and a half feet away from him and _especially_ since it wasn't the first time someone forced themselves on him). The man wags his finger at Thor, eyes devilish and playful, says, "We shall see, my friend, we shall see." He looks at Loki for a _third_ time, then, waves the base of his beer bottle in the general direction of the man's plate, and echoes his earlier question of, "So? D'you like it?"

Much to the world's surprise, nobody makes an outburst. However, thanks to a combination of a fear of being interrupted, the uneasiness brought on by the memory of Steve's party, and a simple unwillingness to speak, Loki just gives Fandral an awkward, inelegant thumbs-up and pretends his mouth is full instead of verbalizing his response. (As you can see, he's a total pro at socializing and acting like a normal college student.)

"Oh, he's just saying that so your feelings don't get hurt," Thor huffs, amusement stretched clear across his face as he leans back in his lawn chair.

"You just said so yourself that this was '_fucking amazing_'!" Fandral exclaims, momentarily throwing his hand in the air and regarding Thor with accusing blue eyes.

"I'm afraid you did, baby," Sif puts in, one of her rare, genuine smiles swiftly landing on her face and rendering her suddenly several years younger and several times more beautiful (and it's not like she isn't anything less than _gorgeous_ normally).

Volstagg and Hogun follow Fandral and Sif's comments with their own remarks of assent, and suddenly, _all four _of them are speaking _at the same time_, raising their voices and talking over each other and protesting and teasing and laughing – "_You can't just go back on what you said like that!_" "_Come on, Thor, I thought you were better than that!_" – and in that moment, Loki feels like his head is going to fucking _explode_ from the sheer degree of _noise_ in the room (and isn't it something that he hasn't said _a word_ the whole time they've been sitting here, and neither has Tony?).

Thor puts an end to the ruckus by being louder than _all_ of his friends combined. "Alright, _alright_ – can we change the subject?" he thunders, somehow managing to be both vexed and entertained in the same breath.

It's _mindblowing_ (not to mention noteworthy) how quickly everyone shuts up.

"That's what I thought," Thor snorts, his expression glowing with what's possibly the most self-satisfied grin anyone has ever grinned _ever_. If you're wondering what that sound is, it's Tony sighing so sharply and irritably Loki can feel the chill of it against the shell of his ear.

Rather than addressing the man's frustration, though (if he even _heard_ it, that is, and he probably _didn't_, seeing as he's not throwing a plate across the table at him), Thor launches right on into storytelling mode and goes, "So let me tell you guys about what happened at practice last Friday."

Loki is borderline _shocked_ by the collective groan that overtakes the table then, by the halfhearted eye-rolls and playful grimaces Fandral, Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun assault Thor with, and it only takes a moment for it to occur to him that maybe he _isn't_ the one person in the world who gets fed up with hearing about Thor's exploits as the second-most popular football player in the whole university – after all, nobody at this table, save Thor and Tony, is extraordinarily high up on the social ladder here, and _honestly?_ That puts a lot of things into perspective for Loki.

"Oh, shut the fuck up!" Thor laughs, smacking Volstagg cleanly on the back of the head with the palm of his hand and subsequently causing the man to spit a small spurt of beer into his lap. Loki very nearly falls over just watching that exchange take place, and he spends the next thirty seconds trying to keep his face impassive and only vaguely annoyed at the lack of table manners being used.

(And, _oh_, wouldn't it just break his heart to know that that's only going to get so much _worse_ in the coming minutes?)

Once all the moaning and bitching has quieted down a bit, Thor picks up where he left off with, "So we're on the field, right? And all of us are having a quick cool-down, because we're sweaty and hot and fucking _Happy Hogan_ can't _breathe_, and Steve and I are getting ready to just leave these assholes behind when the _cheerleaders_ show up out of nowhere–"

Loki interprets that as his cue to tune the fuck out of this conversation (because he'll be _damned_ if he wants to hear about how hot Jean Grey or Emma Frost is yet _again_), turn to face his boyfriend for the first time this whole dinner, and ask, his voice low enough so that only Tony can hear him, "How're you holding up, hm?"

The look Tony gives him in reply would be _hysterical_ in almost _any_ other context but this one – all raised, angled eyebrows and scowling lips and his left eye narrowed the slightest bit in a not-so subtle expression of ire – and he holds Loki with that look for several seconds before he snorts, just as insolent and pissy as can be, "I'm just _peachy_, thanks."

There goes Loki's patience, dropping down a good few rungs on the imaginary sliding scale of His General DonenessTM.

"Could you stop being a child for at least five minutes?" he hisses quietly, his face tightening incrementally with exasperation. Fandral chuckles rather loudly at something Thor has said, then, temporarily breaking him out of the self-formed bubble of ignorance he's caged himself in just before Tony is pulling him right back into it with a roll of his eyes and a near-inaudible scoff.

"Well, I'm so fucking _sorry_ if I'm not as happy as you'd like me to be with this situation," Tony sneers, instantly succeeding at hurling Loki from simply vexed to downright _angry_ as well as making a complete ass out of himself. "I can accept it without being pleased about it."

"What you just said to me _defies logic_, Tony," Loki snaps in a tone marginally harsher, more acidic than the one he was using before, his eyes constricting, growing dark and stormy and _ooh_ – _now_ you did it, Tony, now he's going to slap you in the face and shove you to the ground and kick you in the _dick_ if you so much as _breathe_ incorrectly around him.

And of course, being the fuckass he is, Tony doesn't think anything of coming back at Loki with a spectacularly immature, "Maybe I'm not a logical person." (_Believe_ me, we _all_ agree with you there.)

"Maybe I'm not going to _punch you in the face_ if you stop acting like a goddamn _three year-old_," Loki retorts, and just as he's punctuating that statement, the look on Sif's face catches his eye and he's not so interested in besting Tony in a war of words anymore.

It's not a pretty look, not one of amusement or satisfaction or intrigue or _anything_ Loki would expect to see plastered all over her features in reaction to Thor. No, she looks _cross_ – _hurt_, even – and her gaze is cast downwards and her lips are pursed tightly and she looks like she would _kill_ to be anywhere but here, and just because Loki is so incredibly used to feeling the exact same way as Sif looks like she does right now, he shifts his attention from whatever the hell Tony is saying to the words coming out of Thor's mouth (and boy, oh _boy_ does he feel for Sif when he does).

"I mean, she's fucking _gorgeous!_" is what Thor is rambling on about when Loki starts listening to him again, and the blond's icy blue eyes are open and vibrant and his face is radiant in a way a man's can only be when they're talking about a beautiful woman and his arms are spread wide for emphasis, and Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun are all just nodding and humming so complacently and agreeably and without any regard to their very _obviously_ distressed friend, and Loki feels like he could breathe _fire_ if he really wanted to when Thor says, "Any guy who could hit it with her is a _damn_ lucky one, and I don't mean to brag or anything, but I think I'm one of those guys."

Yeah. He went there.

Before Loki can stop himself or even _think _to get a hold of his self-control, he's got a full-force glare leveled directly at Thor and he's asking, quite tersely, "Can I just... interrupt this conversation for one second?" His words sound like splinters when they come out of his mouth.

At first, nobody answers Loki, and an uneasy stillness settles over the table like a nimbus cloud ready to burst with rain as anxious glances are exchanged and Loki continues to be pissed the fuck off. Then, Thor turns to face him, and what happens as he does this is something Loki can identify _immediately_ because he's been watching it happen all his life, and this such something is an ever-so subtle _shift_ in his demeanor, in the line of his shoulders, in the light in his eyes, in the angle of his brows, and the man is in all-out _better-than-you_ mode when he lets out a vaguely pompous, "What?"

(Fun Fact: Every time Thor pulls that haughtiness bullshit with him, there's an infinitesimal moment where Loki feels smaller than he could ever _possibly_, save for the times when he's depressed out of his mind, a moment where he feels like a child again, a moment where he feels just as wrong as growing up surrounded by his family taught him he should. That moment ends the instant he reminds himself how little of a fuck he gives about Thor's pride.)

"Your girlfriend is sitting _right there_," Loki bites out, gesturing briefly to Sif without tearing his daggered eyes away from his brother. A beat, and then he's going on in an infinitely more irritable tone,"Do you really have the audacity to harp on about every other female in the student body right in front of her? How much more disrespectful could you be?"

Fandral coughs uncomfortably.

For several seconds, Thor simply stares at Loki as if he's just _so_ perplexed beyond belief as to _why_ he'd be so incensed about this, but it doesn't take long for his expression to morph into something as arrogant as it was before as he tilts his head the littlest bit and laughs, oh-so _superciliously_, "Why do you care?"

Loki glowers darkly at Thor, damn near physically _recoiling_ from that unabashed hit on his character, barks with an intimidating cock of the head, "Why shouldn't I?"

Thor actually appears to get uncomfortable at that, his hand coming up to run through his messy flaxen tresses and rub along the back of his neck and his eyes swiftly averting themselves from Loki, and his voice is half-chuckle when he starts to bluster, "Well, I mean... it's not like... you... you don't–"

"I don't what?" Loki snaps, rapidly growing impatient with his brother's bullshit, and to be completely clear, that's _exactly_ what it is – _bullshit_ – because Thor _knows_ what he wants to say and _Loki_ knows Thor knows what he wants to say. The blond is just trying to find the least offensive way to say it, not that Loki particularly cares for the sentiment.

And because Loki cares so little about that such sentiment, Thor looks him right in the face and says, "You don't give a shit about her."

You know _that_ feeling, that feeling that paints the inside of your chest a deep red and makes the inside of your head a little warmer than it should be and reflexively draws the muscles in your face taught and sinks the very core of you right down into your diaphragm where it slowly begins to rot? I'm not talking about anger, my dear – I'm talking about _shame_, and shame is what finds itself getting shoved down Loki's throat the instant Thor has said that, because even though Loki has been experiencing these odd little bursts of sympathy for Sif as of late, his behavior has rarely if _ever_ reflected that he thought of the woman as anything more than a waste of space and a nuisance in his life (to be honest, though, until several days ago, that's literally _all_ she was to him, and for good reason).

However, he can't really ponder on that thought for longer than a second and a half, because suddenly, the most irate voice in recorded history is going hurtling past his ear and straight into Thor's face like an expertly-aimed sucker punch to the nose, saying, "Like you know _so much_ about how he feels about her."

Tony was bound to enter this conversation at some point, right? (That would be Loki wishing he had a gun to _shoot_ himself with, thanks.)

"What?" Thor echoes, this time with legitimate confusion tainting the question.

"Like you would even have the _foggiest_ fucking idea what he thinks about other people," Tony goes on, his voice growing progressively harsher, more argumentative as he leans forward in his chair to address Thor directly with his eyes as well as his mouth. "Like you're any kind of invested in his social life, which, uh –" He pauses to release a spiteful, sarcastic little chuckle. "– I don't know if you could tell by my mocking tone, but you _aren't_."

"You say that like I don't even know him," Thor retorts, the beginnings of his trademark blind fury cropping up in the spaces between his words and his brow furrowing with anger.

"Maybe you don't," is Tony's rapidfire response, promptly punctuated with a shit-eating smirk.

An imaginary lightbulb goes off in Loki's head right then, because in that moment, it registers to him that beyond the whole initial, obvious thing of '_I love him more than you, you damn, dirty bastard!_', a lot of the conflict between Thor and Tony has to do with the fact that both men are so irrationally possessive of their right to _know_ things about him – his past, his wants, his fears, his preferences, his idiosyncrasies, his every little thought and his every little grievance and his every little dream and his every little way of looking at the world around him – and their right to claim some sort of perverse _ownership_ of these things, as if one can feasibly own the personality traits and the memories of another person. You know how _disgusted_ that makes Loki when he thinks about it that way?

(Hint: Pretty _fucking_ disgusted.)

"Maybe you should quit acting like you fucking know me," Thor growls, his fist visibly tightening where it's planted on the tabletop and his eyes like cerulean embers in his skull. (Oh, _joy_ – we're playing the '_maybe_' game again.)

"Maybe you should quit calling my boyfriend an uncaring bitch!" Tony borderline _yells_ across the table, casting an inflammatory hand into the air, and his expression is no longer that of a man who's overly _amused_ by his own fuckery, _no_ – now it's a straight-up mask of '_not fucking around_' and _'dare you to challenge me_' and '_I'm ready to raise all kinds of hell in here_', and quite frankly, Loki kind of wants to slap it.

"I didn't call him _anything!_" Thor exclaims, abruptly slamming his knuckles against the table. He lets out a deep, leonine pant for a second, raises his hand to point an angry, accusatory finger at Tony, and points out in a tone intended to shut Tony's mouth as swiftly as possible, "And he's not just _your boyfriend_ – he's my _little brother_, too!"

"Well, you do a great _fucking_ job of treating him like he is!" Tony counters with just as much passion as Thor, eyes going wide and frenzied with ire and instinctive excitement carving deep gashes of tension into his face.

That's when Loki gets _really _tired of hearing this shit, _really_ tired of seeing the wildfires raging in Thor and Tony's gazes, _really_ tired of having to watch Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif stare between the two of them and between each other with matching expressions of discomfort and displeasure, _**really**_ tired of the words getting flung across his lap and the total lack of order at the table and, more than almost anything, the _noise_.

(And I mean, to be honest, he was tired of all this the very instant it began. _Now_ just so happens to be the exact moment in which he can muster up the bravado to stop jumping and flinching every time Thor or Tony opens their mouth and _speak the fuck up_ to them – two men who are equally hard to confront when they're as pissed off as they are now.)

"_Stop yelling!_" Loki shouts over the cacophony, impulsively reaching a hand out to press against Tony's chest in a half-conscious attempt to bring the man back down to earth (Lord _knows_ he's anywhere but with him right now). Tony's breathing is heavy and brisk against his palm as he adds, "I didn't intend for this to turn into an argument."

"You're just gonna let him lie about you to your face?" Tony snaps, drawing Loki's harsh stare his way. His face isn't openly livid like it was when Thor was looking at it, but the irritation slicing clear across it and the unconcealed _scorn_ in his eyes does horrible, _horrible_ things to Loki's stomach, to his _heart_, and his voice is unforgiving when he asks, "And you're going to fuss at _me_ for trying to defend you?"

I want you to take a guess at how long it takes for that to make Loki _hate_ Tony. (If you're in the milliseconds, you're on the right track.)

"I don't _need_ to be defended!" Loki retorts, quickly drawing his hand away from Tony's chest as he lets loose the full brunt of the _fury_ and the _hurt_ he feels, lets it bleed out of his eyes and seep into the angles and the hollows in his face and twist his brow and part his lips regardless of all the people watching. "I'm not some weak, _frail_ thing you have to protect at all times – I don't _need_ you to _**save**_ me!"

The dark, ironic smirk Tony gives him in response is enough to have Loki blacking out with rage, but _oh_ – it's _nothing_ compared to the words that come out of his mouth next – "Not from where I'm standing."

The voice that escapes Loki then is frightening in its ferocity, in its sharpness and its viciousness and its _volume_, and it functions both as an honest expression of his anger and a verbal _bitch-slap_ when he yells right in Tony's face, without any hesitation, "_Oh, will you __**shut up**__!_"

(And I'm telling you right now that this is the most angry Loki has _ever_ been at Tony in all the time they've known each other – _**ever**_. This is his strength of will being invalidated, here, just like it has been time after _motherfucking_ time, _over_ and _**over**_ again until he could _vomit_ he's so damn tired of it all.)

The room goes absolutely _silent_, then, silent and still and quickly growing cold as Thor gawks at his brother like he's never seen something so _dangerous_ in his life (never mind the fact that Loki's been even _more_ pissed off and savage with him several times before), Tony stares at Loki with wrath and distress and _shock_ painting his features, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif watch all this transpire with slack jaws and wide eyes, and Loki contemplates the fact that he just told Tony – who _also_ has major inferiority issues and is probably in one of the _worst_ states of mind for that sort of thing at the moment – to _shut up_.

And then Fandral opens his mouth and coos (_**coos**_), all quiet and amused and straight out of middle school, "_Oooh_, dude got _schooled_..."

It's a fraction of a second before Tony turns his gaze, now full of straight-up _ire_ and with none of the semisolid angst it held when it was beholding Loki, onto Fandral and _spits_, so full of venom and malice that it's almost _unbelievable_ how charming and wonderful this man is capable of being, "Excuse me, but I don't _fucking_ recall asking for your opinion, you _autistic __**mouthbreather**__._"

The responding look on Fandral's face is downright _comical_, like that of a man who's just been given one _hell_ of a slap – all bugged eyes and raised brows and gaping mouth and pallid cheeks – and the funniest thing about it is the fact that it's being mirrored by almost everyone at the table in varying degrees of shock, outrage, and fury.

"In fact, I don't remember _anyone_ asking for your fucking help, _especially_ not Loki," Tony goes on, obviously _still_ insistent on fighting for Loki's honor and not-so discreetly getting off on being the most scandalous and offensive person present.

That's when Fandral stops being flabbergasted just enough to get _pissed_, to narrow his eyes and scowl and lean forward and come back at Tony, indignant and astonishingly sincere, "Hey, I'm doing Loki a _kindness_, but I can understand why someone like _you_ might find that hard to understand."

Tony laughs openly at that, raucous and spiteful and not _at all_ amused, and his expression is like hard candy and rat poison as he says, the words coming out progressively harsher as they escape him, "It's nice to hear that coming from a person so oblivious that it took a fucking slap to the face for you to realize that my boyfriend doesn't want to ride your dick."

There it is – the _nausea_, pushing its way up into Loki's throat and wrapping itself around his pharynx, _squeezing_, and he feels somewhat dizzy at the repeated memory of Fandral _kissing _him, so hard and forceful and _angry_, at the idea of maybe even having _sex_ with the man, and oh _God_, he can feel himself tripping inside the cavern of his mind, feel himself stumbling and falling and scraping his knee and striking his head against the hard floor of that thought because Fandral is _**kissing**_him and all he wants to do is get the fuck out of Steve's house as fast as he possibly can–

"Hey, stop talking to my friend like that!" Thor explodes, unleashing a whole new murderous wave of sound right against the side of Loki's face, _punching _him with his words even as they're directed at Tony.

And then there's Steve and his stupid smile and his endless charisma and all the times he's looked at Loki or looked through him or looked at _Tony_ and his '_Yeah, why her?_' (why _you_, Loki?) and his '_It's no big deal_' and his strong arms around him and he's grinning so brightly and he smells like sweat and friendship and he wants to be his _friend? __**Why?**_

"Stop talking to my _boyfriend_ like that!" Tony yells back, matching Thor's volume to the decibel – another blow to Loki's face, this time clipping him in the jaw.

And then there's Tony and his unfathomable magnitude, his _gravity_, his easy smirk and the metallic melancholy in his eyes, and he scares Loki a lot, you know, scares him more than he would like to admit and more than he intends to when he looks at him like he's in love with him (he _is_, and Tony Stark doesn't fall in love with _anyone_ but himself) and when he kisses him on that one Valentine's Day and when he's so _strong_ and when he can handle him so easily in bed and when he's such a good French-kisser it's worrying and when he gets so _fucking __**angry**_ and Loki knows he could seriously injure someone if he really wanted to, and for all of Loki's fire, he's never been _that_ angry, never wanted to _strangle_ someone like he knows Tony does and can–

"You don't own him!" Thor thunders. He can't see the spot of red growing on the crest of Loki's cheek, quickly darkening to a deep purple, bruising the flesh there, can't see the skin of his lip splitting and bursting and the blood dribbling down his chin, dripping onto his plate, can't see the bones in his jaw fracturing with each heavy-handed word – '_you_', **crack**, '_don't_', **crack**, '_own_', **crack**_, _'_him!_', **crack**.

And you know, _Loki_ can't see the wounds either – he was only ever able to behold the faint, scarred remnants of them when it was all over and done with and he was out of the hospital and he'd been high on morphine for so long that his face had healed up by the time he could look at himself in a mirror again, but he used to like to imagine the way he must have looked when Thor hit that fucking Subaru, the way his face bled and the shards of glass that sliced into it, and he would always envision his face bruising whenever they all sat down to dinner and screamed at each other like they're screaming now, Thor and Odin growling like animals, Freyr and his own father doing the same, Frigga and Volla aiming knives and needles across the table at one another, Freya crying out in a vain attempt to end it all, Odin's eyes on his own stained with tears and his voice so even and cool – "_Stupid, weak child._"

"_**You**_ don't own him!" Tony roars. That's when Loki's skull splits.

That's when he's had enough.

"_**I'm here!**_" he yells at the top of his lungs, the exclamation tearing at the inside of his throat with sharp talons on its way out of him and hitting the air like a gunshot, oxidizing and shattering in the center of the table. He doesn't look at anyone, doesn't do anything but try to let oxygen come to him as he cries,_** "**_I'm sitting _right_ in front of you! _Why_ are you talking about me _like I'm not __**here**__?!_"

Nobody answers him or dares to move a muscle in their shock, all the air having been sucked out of the room by the sheer _gravity_ of his question, and Loki can feel the unbearable warmth of anguish build in his cheeks and his eyes grow hot with molten lava tears when he lets them finally land on someone – _Tony_ – and cries, "I am so _unbelievably_ _**tired**_ of _you_ –" He sweeps his gaze and the tip of his index finger around the table, touches every person present with each. "_All_ of you – talking about me like I'm not sitting _right fucking __**here**__!_"

Loki is forced to stop, then, and that's mainly because he's found that he _can't __**fucking**__ breathe_ anymore and the nausea he was experiencing earlier is _ten times __**worse**_ and he's crying so hard he can barely see and his body is legitimately _shaking_ and his heart won't stop beating so damn _fast _and it won't stop pummeling against his chest cavity and it won't stop punching itself up towards his esophagus and his head is pounding in time with his pulse and more than anything _he can't fucking __**breathe**_, so he props his elbows up on the table and buries his face in his hands (because _no_, he can't cry in front of these people _again_ and let them see they've won, they've done it, they've beaten him _one more time_) and _sobs_ into them, lets his body go on quaking and breaking and his lungs plead in vain for oxygen and his head crack open against his palm and spill its contents all over the table for everyone to see. And it seems to go on for an eternity.

Nobody speaks. Nobody _breathes_. Everyone just listens and watches and _bleeds_ as Loki has a full-scale _panic attack_ right in front of their eyes, afraid to touch him and afraid to speak for fear of breaking the imaginary glass cage he's sealed himself in, and _fucking __**Christ**_ – they're _**scared**_ of him. Do you have any idea how awful it is to be _feared?_

And then, in a muted, exceptionally gentle tone, Fandral says, "I'm sorry, Loki."

When Loki raises his head to regard the man through his tears, he's initially taken aback by the blatant sympathy coloring his face. Fandral's gaze falters a bit under his, and the blond sounds unsure and insecure when he adds, "I mean, if all this –" He gestures to the table, the food. "– is a burden to you – "

"Stop," Loki cuts him off with a sharp sniff, shielding his eyes and his nose with his palm and shaking his head ever so slightly. He exhales shakily, his voice a quiet strain as he says, "It's more than I could ever ask from you."

He doesn't see the way Fandral nods slowly in acknowledgment. He doesn't see the look of absolute defeat on Tony's face. He doesn't see the way Thor's hand moves to caress his shoulder, then stops in midair only to fall back to the table. He doesn't see any of that. The silence reigns on.

That is, until Sif takes her chance to speak up and offers Loki a soft, "Thank you." She doesn't have to specify what for.

Loki lets out a faint, sad little chuckle in response to the irony (wasn't _she_ the one standing up for _him_ the last time they had dinner together?), lowers his hand from his face, and gives Sif a hazy, forced smile as he replies, "Don't mention it."

Then, he braces himself against the back of his chair and the wood of the table and pushes himself to his feet (his _foot_), hissing audibly at the pain in his knee and the simple effort of _moving_ in the state of mind he's in. He's only limped two paces away from the table before Volstagg is out of his chair and rushing to steady him, positioning one of his thin, limp arms around his broad shoulders and carefully helping him around the table and across the kitchen, and Loki can't help but cry even _harder_ at the unusually friendly, _supportive_ gesture, can barely suppress the sobs just _begging_ to come out of him as Volstagg guides him out of the room and into the dark, cool hallway.

He doesn't look back at anyone as he leaves.

* * *

Volstagg eventually gets him into his bedroom and sat on the edge of his mattress, where Loki wastes no time in collapsing into his own lap, arms folded over his knees and forehead shoved unceremoniously into the curve of his elbow. He lets himself break, then, lets himself fall apart and shatter into a million tiny pieces at the foot of his bed, his tears seeping into the creases in his skin and his breath coming in deep, quick gasps.

Volstagg just stays with him for a moment or two, watching him without a word, before he rests a brief hand at the spot between Loki's quaking shoulderblades, murmurs a quiet, "Sorry for ruining your night, Loki," and walks out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.

A minute passes and Loki doesn't move, doesn't react, doesn't change.

Two minutes and he can hear Thor's voice from the kitchen, booming, thunderous – "_What the fuck is wrong with you?!_"

Three minutes and it sounds like another _world war _is raging on the other side of the house – Tony screaming at Thor, Thor screaming at Tony, Fandral and Sif screaming at the both of them, curses and insults and accusations flying like bullets, like _bombs_, bombs spreading their awful radioactivity all the way back to where Loki sits and wishes the battle would _end_ already (why can't it just be _over with?_).

And when he hears Tony yell, "_I've done more for him than you could ever possibly hope to do yourself!_" and when he hears Thor yell, "_You? A disgusting piece of shit like __**you**__?!_" and when he hears Sif yell, "_You're both just making things worse, you assholes!_", Loki crawls to the head of his mattress and curls himself up into a tight little ball and shoves the heels of his palms against his ears and weeps.

He thinks about what Tony said earlier – "_Not from where I'm standing._" – and he wonders if the man _really_ thinks him so weak, so helpless, so _fragile_. He wonders if that was just his anger talking. He wonders if his supposed _weakness_ is what endeared him to Tony so much in the first place.

He wonders if he did the right thing, consenting to a relationship with the man. It's only been a week and they've already changed so much. And sometimes (like now), he feels like he's drowning under the weight of it all. And he doesn't want to lose Tony as a friend.

_Oh_, he doesn't want to lose Tony _as a __**friend**_.

He falls asleep with that thought perched at the forefront of his consciousness.

* * *

The skin around his eyes is dry and crusty when Loki wakes. There's a blanket that wasn't there before covering him and the lamp by the bed has been switched off. The only noise he can hear is coming from the opposite side of the room, and it sounds a whole lot like a video game when he's aware enough to really pay attention to it.

Loki sits up slowly, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders and pool in his lap as he takes in the sight before him – Tony, cross-legged on the floor and nothing more than a silhouette in the dark, playing _Final Fantasy X_ on the PlayStation 2 hooked up to Loki's television. He hasn't changed his clothes from earlier, and his hair is the mess it always is.

Loki contents himself with simply watching the man for a lengthy moment or two, his words echoing faintly in his head – "_Not from where I'm standing, not from where I'm standing..._" – before he stops thinking long enough to let himself ask, "Why are you on the floor?"

Tony starts a bit, reflexively pausing the game and whirling around to face Loki. At first, his eyes are wide and almost _scared_, but when he sees the softness in Loki's expression, the fire in his own dies down to something more warm. His lips stay parted several seconds before he actually says something, before he replies, "I didn't want to disturb you."

(_Ha._)

When Loki doesn't do anything beyond nodding his assent and running a hand through his unkempt raven hair, Tony tosses his controller to the ground and rises to his feet, circles around to the side of the bed and sits on the very edge of it, like he's afraid to get too close to Loki just in case he upsets him. He watches him carefully, chewing at the inside of his lip, then murmurs, "I'm sorry, Loki."

That's the _third_ apology tonight.

Loki scoffs quietly, giving Tony a small smirk much like the one the man showed him earlier. "You should be," he retorts.

"I know, _I know_," Tony sighs, abruptly reaching out to snatch Loki's hand from where it rests in his lap and squeeze it gently in his own. "I fucked up." He mirrors Loki's smirk, then, right down to the tiny pocket of bitterness hidden in his right dimple, adds, "What more could you expect from a guy like me?"

There isn't a trace of uncertainty in Loki's voice when he replies, "A _lot_ more," and when Tony's face turns solemn and skeptical, Loki doesn't hesitate to scoot on closer to the man, cup his jaws in his hands, look him in the eyes, and say, "You're easily capable of being the most wonderful person I know, Tony."

"I'm _also_ capable of being a total jackass," Tony argues with a chuckle, and Loki knows that he's only laughing at his pain because it's the one way he won't get _bad_ again, the one way he's not going to go resorting to anger and hostility to make himself feel better.

"That only matters if you _let_ it matter," Loki evenly points out, and Tony looks at him like he might have fallen in love with him all over again, and Loki smiles and lays his head against Tony's shoulder and Tony lets out a sigh deep enough to leave him out of breath.

And the two of them sit like that for a long time, their arms intertwined and Tony's cheek leaning into Loki's cranium and Loki content with simply _smelling_ Tony and reminding himself that _this_ is the man he loves, _this_ is the man he wants to be with, _this_ is the man he wouldn't mind drowning with in a million years, and this is the man he will never, _ever_ let go of if it's the last thing he does, and when Tony finally breaks the silence, he's murmuring, "Thor and I talked."

Loki doesn't move his head. His tone is quiet and inquiring. "You did?"

Tony hums in assent. He runs his knuckles up Loki's side as he explains, "We both decided it's pointless to keep fighting over you when we both care about you so much and when... when you need both of us."

That's when Loki turns to look at Tony, his eyes tired and soft, and Tony returns his gaze with just the slightest bit of apprehension, and they watch each other, breathe each other's air, attempt to understand, for what seems like a year and a half.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki is aware of the distinct possibility that this could be a temporary thing, that Thor and Tony could go back to the constant arguing and the unabashed animosity and the blatant disrespect for Loki's self-worth in a heartbeat, that he's going to have a night like this _again_ sometime in the near future, but you know what?

Loki doesn't _care_ about that right now – he's too exhausted to. He only cares about the fact that Tony and Thor agreed with each other _at all_, and that they did it for _his_ sake, and that they _love_ him (they _**love**_him).

So he kisses Tony on the corner of his mouth and whispers a soft, "Thank you," and returns his head to where it laid against the man's shoulder, and Tony lets him stay that way until he feels like moving again.

* * *

**It's finally done.**

**I'm not going to say a whole lot here simply because I'm in a hurry to get this posted and the majority of what I need to say is going on my blog, but –**

**Thank you to all of those who supported me.**

**Thank you to all of those who stayed with me.**

**Thank you to all of those who were patient.**

**Thank you for loving this story. You make my world go round, babes.**

**Friendly reminder to please check out that post and leave me sweet things and tell me about any and all issues you find in this chapter. I love you all.**

**- Gabi. **


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